Hit the Yuba last Saturday with a buddy. Hiked up from the HWY 20 bridge fishing along the way. Saw a few guys out but not very crowded at all. No one had seen any action. Later in the day around 1:30 there was some surface action that only lasted a few minutes. No fish yet. Headed back to the car at 2:30 to eat lunch then rigged up with dries hoping for a late afternoon hatch. There were several fish rising under the bridge but on the far side and we couldn't reach them. Continued upstream watching for risers...none seen. We walked way, way upstream and my buddy had a fish on for about a half second. We tried all kind of stuff, poopahs, PT's, birds nests, san juans, eggs, RS2's, blah, blah, blah all kinds of stuff...nothing happening. We fished from 10:30 to after six with only 1 bite between the 2 of us. Of everyone else we talked to we heard of only 3 fish landed all day.
Fished it Sunday from about 9:30-1:00. Lots of "riffle markers" (anglers) upstream of the bridge, so we headed downstream. We fished the second major bar below the bridge(LH bend), where the south side access road comes back to the river after heading inland for a 100 yds. Worked the southern side from the little cliffs, all the way down to the major rapid/pocket at the begining of the right hand bend where the concrete structure is.
Between the two of us we had three fish hooked, one of them was brought to hand. The one I landed took a #20 BH Hares Ear Rubber Leggs. Stones and sucker-spawn weren't working, so I switched to that fly after turning over a few more rocks. From what I saw, the only buggs on the move were #22-24 PMDs on my waders, and #20 creamy/greenish-tan mayfly clinger nymphs. My buddy hooked two and lost em both. One was on a yellow sucker-spawn. I don't know what the other one took.
We talked to a DFG agent who was working from a kayak. No one else was doing much better than us according to his surveys. Slow day all around.
__________________
Tune in next time for the further adventures of "Break-em-off Billy"
I fished the Lower Stan on Sunday, took my girlfriend for her first fishing trip ever. Only caught one small rainbow on a WD40 near Goodwin, the few other people I ran into all said the same thing - SLOW. Sounds like it was slow no matter where you went. Lots of insects on the rocks, small midges, caddis, and what appeared to be a scud. If you looked hard enough you would eventually find actively working fish picking bugs mid water column.
A few risers towards the evening at Knights Ferry but the fishing poles were packed away by then, we were just driving back and stopped to scout it out for a future trip.
Misterbill, that's a great area you hit on the river. There is some great action to be had there at times, I fish that area a lot, and usually can rely on action, especially in the lower section. I did get skunked there a month ago though, and it wasn't for lack of trying. We worked it over hard all day and nothing was happening. Last run got a couple late in the day there.
From my experience it sounds like typical yuba fishin. The fish are there but they ain't easy pickins. I'm goin up sunday hoping for some action. I dont hear much of anyone saying they fish down river of sycamore ranch, Thats some good water down there !
