First off, it felt like April or May out there today. It was almost 80 degrees. Man, the river is low @975 cfs and gin clear, and I mean clear. Personally, I'd rather have about 350 more cfs and some color. It was nice and steelhead green only 3 weeks ago. To me ,this is primetime for the Yuba River. Today it showed with Skwala's hatching, a big PMD hatch and some March Brown's beginning to show. The hatches began at about 10:00 and went on intermittently until about 5 pm.
With the low, gin clear water, you need to have your "A" game going. I mean the fish see you as well as every false cast and cast from 60 feet away. There is not much to hide you right now. For me, this meant a lot of long drifts to where the fish couldn't see me. Problem is when your fly is that far away, and you get that lightning quick strike . . . hmmmmm, a little tough to hook up. Especially after 30 years of Hefeweizen training to slow down the reaction time a wee bit. If your day is predicated on numbers only, stay home. If you are up for the challenge, and a little heartbreak, you are in luck.
There were a LOT of rising fish today. I bet I whiffed on 20 eats . . . it's jut so far out to your fly in these conditions. I had a couple of break offs from big fish and landed several fish today. It's nice to see big fish taking dries again. I saw one fish go aerial that had to be over 20" . . . I'd guess 22".
Winning flies for me were a PMD Emerger, Bullethead Skwala ( be sure to have a couple of these) on top and a Green Rubberlegs and Micro May underwater. This is the best Skwala hatch I have seen in 4 (?) years.
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