Just back from fishing the north yuba for 3 days. It was fun, fast action fishing pretty much the whole time, The fish ran small but hit hard and fought like champs, average fish was 6 to 12 inches. Best flies were orange stimulator, or a yellow humpy for the dry's, Best nymphs to use were black copepr johns and a flashback pt. Also fished heypress creek, same thing but even smaller fish. The north yuba is a great river, fun to fish and has just about any type of water one could want. I'll defenitly be back up there again this summer to try for some of the larger fish that i could see. I did LDR a good one, I won't speculate on size .
I agree, I love the NF Yuba. What's nice is that it is fed by so many springs, the water temperature is always about perect . . . even when it's 100 degrees out. It is a very pretty river as well. There are some big boys in there, usually dep in the holes.
Glad to hear the trip went well! Your experiences are pretty much par for the course from my trips up there.
How far up Haypress did you get? Most of the fish are smallies, but if you get up far enough there are some bigger fish. Not huge by any means, but there are some holes and pools where the bigger fish congregate.
Sorry Emerger I didnt take any pics, The ones in my head are enough. Eric, I went maybe a little more then a mile up heypress, Problem was I went up the wrong side and the trail quickly disapeared and turned into serious climbing and bushwacking, Later I noticed there is a much better trail up the other side. It was pretty amazing to toss a dry fly into what looked like an empty pool only to have it just come alive with fish, sometimes getting 5 or 6 hits on a single drift, No brookies but there are supposed to be in there. On the yuba I fiished above downieville, but Maybe down river from there the fish would be larger, the river quickly gathers some size down that way. The hatches were very good almost the whole time I fished, It was just a little bit of pretty much everything, golden stones, little yellow sally, some black stones, All kinds of sizes of pmd's, march browns, and of course midges, caddis only hatched good one evening though. My last night I did get to witness what i'd call the kind of hatch I have only read about, They were march browns and caddis, both were large, maybe size 14's, It was the type of hatch were I couldnt keep bugs out of my eyes and nose, I made sure the mouth stayed shut.
The North Fork area is great. Sounds like you had a good time up there. The golden stones seem to be hatching late this year due to a weird spring. There is nothing better than throwing a size 10 or 12 stimulator into a back eddy behind a rock and watching the fish just attack it. Watch how you backcast though, there may be one of those small fish on it when you are pulling your line out. I nearly flung a little guy a long ways last weekend.
Another great thing about the NF Yuba is that it's a 3 1/2 hour drive from the Bay Area, and not a great drive. There is no easy way out. Keeps the crowds low. Couple this with 20+ miles of river and it's very possible to not see another fly fisher all day. Reasonable lodging, good restaurants and a friendly watering hole in Downieville & Sierra City make for a great weekend. The October Caddis hatch can also be a great one here.
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