Summer Day on the Lower Yuba

I've been fishing the Lower Yuba River in the evenings for the last week or so and decided to try floating the river from above Parks bar Bridge down to the Marysville Gun Club. Frank Rinella and my son Zack came along. Frank stated that the flows were about 3200 cfs. We set up our shuttle and got on the river about 11:00. The temperature seemed to be in the low 80's.

We were floating the river in my Fishcraft cataraft as I was taking it on a test run for our trip to Montana next week. The front and the rear of the raft arch up so that when rowing it rows more like a cat and is more responsive than most rafts. It has plywood floors and is a very stable and quit platform. With that said it is 3 times as hard to row physically that my drift boat. My arms are feeling it today. It's a great boat for more than 3 people and when rowing unfamiliar waters. It's pretty bomber.

The first thing I noticed was that the river was clearer than it's been in awhile, I'm talking spring creek clear. With a bright day this usually means stealth is of the utmost importance. In most of the runs there is a dark line running along each bank and the center portions of the river have been washes clean from the high flows. In some stretches in is literally like black and white. The high flows have scrubbed the river clean. Does this affect the bug life? I'm thinking that it does. To what extent I don't know. We didn't see a bug on the water until late in the afternoon and then there where only a few. I expected a PMD hatch late morning but not a bug to be seen.

The fishing was real slow with a few hookups from morning until about 3:00. We ran into Keith Scott at about 2:00 with two of his fishing buddies and they had picked up two fish to that time. At about 3:00 the sky became a little overcast and the fishing immediately picked up. To me this is an indication of how tough the Yuba can get mid-day in bright sun. We ran into Keith at the take out and he had picked up a really nice rainbow during this period on a dry. This fish would have been a fish of a lifetime for most anglers. Good job Keith!

We did manage a few fish to the boat along with a number of LDR's.





We were contemplating sticking around for the evening hatch but were just too tuckered out from a long day in the sun.

Zack jumped in the river many times during the day and kept cool. I wish I had that kind of gumption.







All in all a fun day on the Yuba, where the number of fish to the boat is kept in perspective. It's all about the joy of spending time with friends and family.