This thread started about the North side access which was blocked by an illegal gate put up by a private person along a Public road. Why you parse it out that you are using the south access and that is somehow making you pure as the driven snow doesn't wash. It doesn't matter how or what side you got in. You sir, Brian Clemens, and your guide buddies who are paying access, are profitting from others who are blocking legal and long standing historical Public access. It doesn't even matter that you personally did not block the access. You are benefitting from illegal acts. You are benefitting because the Public doesn't get to fish there. There used to be 15-20 cars on the North side, with people walking completely legally beneath the bridge, to the water's edge, and navigating on foot upstream, even crossing to the south side at lower flows (such as right now). They don't get to do that any more. Only you and other guides that pay a thousand bucks to this (expletive) Yuba River Drifters. Much less pressure for you and your clients only. It's not your private resource. Everyone else loses. I don't know how else to put it.

As for that South access blockage and this dude associated with Yuba River Drifters putting up barbed wire so no one could go east; that too, is illegal, because it blocked a historical access. The south access west was gated by Yuba County. On the North, the east access is gated by Nordic, and this dude Roy and it isn't even his property or road at all., and to the west - this dude Roy puts all sorts of threatening signs and barbed wire. It is completely legal for wade fishermen to navigate on foot below the high water mark.

It is for these reasons I will not do business with you, and that I encourage no one else to book you, or any other guide, who does business with Yuba River Drifters.

There are numerous comments here about efforts made by myself and others to numerous contacts at the County and State: nothing is being done here or elsewhere. There's periodically been other access interference at Hallwood (signage and aggressive ticketing by Yuba County sheriff) - which is another legal access in a long-standing highway easement (not built yet). Finally, at UC Sierra - an access long sought by CDFW (and actually Public access agreed in exchange for the ceding of the Fish Hatchery on Polaris Creek up in Tahoe) was never implemented in principle and then discontinued (they had a program of 10 people per month in a paper lottery, a flawed idea concocted by then Director Banky Curtis; it went on for a few years - then poof!). Hammon Grove is the sole exception where access was improved (by road construction/parking area) although that took decades.

For all it's fishery resources, Yuba County is best known for hassling wade fishermen, progressively blocking their accesses, and doing nothing about it if they complain. When it comes to Public access, it's not whether you are for it or against it; it is a right. So either you are for Public rights, or you're not. I am, are you?


If this reputation proves anything, it's that there's little individuals like you and I can do. It's not just the lower Yuba although it is perhaps more visible by virtue of higher use. In my opinion, what's needed here is permanent and sustained leadership by the State in protecting and enhancing Public access; dedicated staff positions, and legal support. Until that happens, I expect little will change for the better, and probably the worse.