Sea Lions at Yuba City

[Tony Buzolich]

This has been one heck of a season so far starting with all the high water fluctuations, mud like I've never seen before, The Yuba River has been dumping so much mud it's messing the Feather up all the way from the mouth to Verona.

Now the bait guys don't mind the muddy water and the stripers have been here for a couple of months. Once the word got out the parking lots at all the boat ramps have been packed solid. Twice in the last two weeks I've had to turn around at the ramp and leave because I couldn't launch because of no parking anywhere. This morning at Boyd's Pump the lot was almost full at 6:15 AM and there were 5 or 6 guide boats tied up at the dock waiting for clients to show up.

No matter how early we get there it always seems somebody else is ahead of you. And trying to be stealthy around the stripers and getting them to take a fly is next to impossible with all the traffic.

Now today was the final straw when we saw sea lions swimming straight up through Shanghai Bend falls, and had another one come racing toward our boat when he saw us fighting a fish.

Damn, this has been a tough season so far, Tony