what a weekend...told from the redding public library parking lot
So I am chillen out in the redding library parking lot poaching wifi waiting to go in and give a slide show presentation to the Shasta Mayflies (all women fly fishing club) and I thought this would be a good time to up date the blog. Spent Saturday on the lower yuba river guiding two of my good clients, dave and doug from San Diego. Fishing was good. Flows are up to 1600 and clarity is about 1-3'. Fish on the Lower yuba have moved into their high water haunts and seem to be done spawning. In the upper river where the clarity wasn't as good most of our fish came in shallower water 2-3' - typical high off color water spots - once we got to the middle river (old first island) we began to get fish in a little deeper water along seems slots - typical high water spots. I find that once the slower flats and runs have enough water moving through them to create good seams yuba trout will move outta the riffles and hang more in what I would call lower sac style of water. Most of our fish came on rubber legs and copper johns - no worms or caddis. We did raise and hook a few fish lower in the river on #12 Yuba Emergers and Elk Hair Caddis. No big fish but good numbers - biggest fish was about 18" with good numbers of fat 16-17" fish.
Sunday I spent the morning guiding the Sac down from Ord Bend looking for stripers. Well we got a few grabs that we missed and ventured about a mile below rd. 49 fishing all the likely spots. Water was high, up around 14000, and off color - about 6" of visibility. I have found though that visibility is not a big deal when it comes to striper fishing. Fishing was tough but it got tougher...on the way back up river my lower unit on my motor went out. If you are not familiar with boats that is like your transmission going out...definately a bad deal. So I drift down river to where the river meets the road and scope out a spot I might be able to get my trailer down to. No dice. So I call my buddy to tow me off the river...his boat is in pieces and he says 3-4 hours, it is 11:30 - so I call my wife and she throws my 2 year old son in the car and comes and picks up my clients and takes them back to chico. I sit and wait...take a nap...skip rocks....wait.....take a nap....skip rocks....call my dad.....wait.....wait.....6:00pm my buddy finally shows up....8:00pm we get back to the boat ramp....long day would be an understatment.
Needless to say I am the proud owner of a brand new evenrude E-Tec 60horse motor that will arrive friday. No more crappy old motors.
The adventure continues....Over and out.
Sunday I spent the morning guiding the Sac down from Ord Bend looking for stripers. Well we got a few grabs that we missed and ventured about a mile below rd. 49 fishing all the likely spots. Water was high, up around 14000, and off color - about 6" of visibility. I have found though that visibility is not a big deal when it comes to striper fishing. Fishing was tough but it got tougher...on the way back up river my lower unit on my motor went out. If you are not familiar with boats that is like your transmission going out...definately a bad deal. So I drift down river to where the river meets the road and scope out a spot I might be able to get my trailer down to. No dice. So I call my buddy to tow me off the river...his boat is in pieces and he says 3-4 hours, it is 11:30 - so I call my wife and she throws my 2 year old son in the car and comes and picks up my clients and takes them back to chico. I sit and wait...take a nap...skip rocks....wait.....take a nap....skip rocks....call my dad.....wait.....wait.....6:00pm my buddy finally shows up....8:00pm we get back to the boat ramp....long day would be an understatment.
Needless to say I am the proud owner of a brand new evenrude E-Tec 60horse motor that will arrive friday. No more crappy old motors.
The adventure continues....Over and out.