Alright.......it has been a while since my last post. I have been on the water everyday for the last two weeks and below you can find what I have seen and saw. There are lots of people fishing out there but this is an honest and straight forward fishing report. Enjoy!
Here is the current fishing report:
Feather: The BIG news is that there are tons of salmon in the Feather. It looks like it did 8-10 years ago. Right now there are too many salmon in the way! So get pumped because it is setting up like a huge year over there. I have already guided it twice and there is fish in the system. One day hooked 14 fish and the other 10. A mix of adults and half pounders between 24-18". I am excited to see what November is going to hold. Hot flies are eggs!!
Lower Sac: The Sac has had an interesting month thus far. The salmon are really late. Fish are still moving into the system daily. It is setting up like the egg bite is going to happen the last week of October. Currently we are still fishing nymphs. I had a 30+ fish day today and never tied an egg on. Don't these salmon know that it is October? Wait maybe the 93 degree weather has them confused. The egg bite is going to happen it is just going to be later in the month. Hot flies have been tan pupahs, micro mays, birds nest, red copper johns, etc.
Lower Lower Sac: I have spent four days this week fishing below Red Bluff. The trout fishing has been solid with all days resulting in 20+ rainbows. Every day we are hooking steelhead. Once again it has been a mix of half pounders and adults. This week I had clients hook 2 big 8lb fish on this lower drift. One big buck just kicked our butt and the other hen we had right to the boat before we lost her. I was seriously heart broken. The numbers of steelhead has been good. Expect the numbers to keep increasing over the next month. The later you get into November the better this drift becomes. Hot flies have been rubberlegs, red copper johns, micro mays, etc.
Yuba: The Yuba is back to its normal self. For those of you that were lucky enough to fish this river from the middle of September to the first of October it was truly impressive. The Yuba had a big early push of salmon and it got all of those trout fired up. We were averaging 30+ hookups for three weeks. But now it is back to normal with my last three days out there giving up about 20 hookups. The hot bugs have been eggs and small mayfly nymphs.
I have several prime dates still open for November for anyone wanting to fish the Feather or Lower Lower Sac.
November 1, 4-5, 9-11 (PRIME DATES!)
Well that is what I have seen.....hope this helps you guys out.
Tight Lines!
Guiding out here on some of the best trout waters of the west coast, it is my goal to fill your memory bank with plenty of fish tales, big and small!
Been to all those places, recently, and it has been below average if not very slow. Some fish are being caught; but mostly skunks. Better than last year, which is not saying much, but the salmon runs are still way, way, down - as is the fish interest in eggs. I would wait for verifying reports from others before heading out again to the yuba, feather, lower sac. Aside from the slow fishing - the fishing pressure unusually high. There is some weather today and that may make things interesting, at least cut down on fair-weather fishermen, and on the sunburn.
Where I have been catching tons of fish (5-6/hr in hand) - is not in any of these places, mostly fishing the 1,000-2,000 ft elevation range. Excellent dry fly fishing from #20 PMD to #8 October caddis (after 5 pm). And no one else there. Elsewhere, the usuals are being pounded to smithereens (e carson/truckee) but are still producing decent action; but it's rare to have more than 10 minutes before encountering people.
I have been focusing on the Lower Sac and Feather this week and I can pretty much assure everyone that this is a very accurate report. Yes, there are lots of boats and anglers but there are still plenty of fish.
Ryan that is about as accurate as it gets. I have been on 2 of those rivers this week as well and would say those reports are pretty damn accurate.
smack talkers remember as guides we cover 6-15miles of river and spend about 8-10 hours on the water. If you are just going into one or two riffles and wade fishing for a few hours of course your not gonna match numbers with guys floating and fishing 8-10 hours a day. Take from reports the information you can...flies, where fish are, etc.
Crowds...one boat on the yuba today (me) and 2 groups of waders...Fishing was fair like Ryan said.
RJ's report on the upper lower sac is right on . I guided it on saturday and did not see many salmon redds, but we wacked them on one of Hogans patterns all day. Hogan I owe you a beer if I ever meet you. Guided that river that begins with a T today and there are more salmon on redds than in the sac, but there are no fish to be caught so you should forget about it until next year.
The only respondants thus far are guides; not a single client, not any other fishermen. That speaks legion. There are a few fish being caught, but not many. The salmon runs remain far below average. Until and unless that changes which there is no hint that it has, temper your expectations and plan accordingly.
1 boat and 2 waders yesterday? Huh? I saw quite a few people on the Yuba yesterday; many more than 1 boat and 2 waders. I saw that many before I got out of my car. Didn't see a soul hook a fish.
When fishing get's good, someone else besides a guide will let us know.
I had the pleasure of fishing with Ryan and found him to be the hardest working guide I've met. Very self-effacing, humble and a good guy. I'd take his report verbatim.
Robert
Amoeba .... wow man you are a real debbie downer ... just telling everyone what I saw on the river while I was out there sunday and standing up for one of my best friends. Also read my post. I didn't say 2 waders I said, "2 groups of waders" which consisted of about 6 people.
Also I didn't say fishing was good. It was fair and we had to work hard for our fish, but sense we spent 10 hours on the river and drifted from the bridge to the dam we were able to put up some numbers.
Furthermore, you are wrong about the salmon returns. Salmon returns on the feather and Yuba are up from previous years. Check the hatchery data from the feather river hatchery and counts over daguerre on the Yuba. Now if you are taking the average from a decade ago, or even two, no they are still low. Improvement is improvement though.
Just cause no one around you is catching fish doesn't mean there isn't fish to be caught fishing out of a boat makes a big difference.
If you don't like reports from guides, don't want to use the information in them to catch some fish, and want to maintain an over all negative attitude towards guides that is your business. Bottom line is there is going to be a lot more reports from guides than casual anglers, we are on the water a whole lot more, its your gig if you want to pay attention to them, but don't question mine or ryan's integrity and honesty just cause we are guide.
Last edited by Hogan Brown; 10-19-2010 at 06:56 AM.
Lower Sac, Feather, Yuba Rivers Fishing Report
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