4/3/16 fishing report

mudhen · Senior Member

4/3/16 fishing report

kbarn · Veteran Member

Any fish?

mudhen · Senior Member

Fish? What are these "fish" of which you speak?....Naw, got skunked but it was a lovely day.

Rossflyguy · Senior Member

I saw a bunch of people at 4 and 5 the week before. Don't know why. It's skinny water and warm weather in low flow conditions. Hopefully the crowds stay there. They can share the hand full of holes there. The rest if the river is wide open.

Fornacino · Senior Member

Access 4 and 5 have been productive for me in previous years. They are relatively spacious and easy to fish. It's also easier to cover a lot of water by walking from 4 to 5 and back again without having to get in the car and drive to a different hole. With that said, I've fished 4 and 5 four times last month and caught precious few fish.

I got to the river at 7:30 yesterday morning and access 4 and 5 were already full of cars. I parked my car on the shoulder about a mile upstream of access 3 where a tail out turns onto fast water...had no luck there. Moved back to access 3 and walked the trail upstream until I found an open spot...nothing, no fish interested in my flies. I left at noon.

mudhen · Senior Member

No.3 strikes me as the test piece for a good putah fly fisherman. I KNOW the fish are there as I have caught them on my spinning rod, but since I have turned to the long rod it's been no go. They are in that narrow boundary layer in the stream flow but haven't YET figured out a good drift in that narrow zone covered by fast water. I also wonder if they are eating different things there

Rossflyguy · Senior Member

The past few years have been higher flows. It's still well under average. It's usually above 200 cfs this time of year. Fish are not in their usual spots.

mattymcfly · Member

Do you guys think the flows will be upped gradually or will it go from 160 to 500 within a few weeks this year? I personally prefer the higher flows because there are less people and more fish plus the creek has been less than 200 since November.

SK60 · Senior Member

Flows change erratically this time of year. This is the spring transition period from city water use only to City + Agricultural use in the I-80 corridor where 90% of the Berryessa water goes. If it rains, they drop the flows, if no rain they ramp up as needed for Ag. No real rain is on the horizon so you can expect flows to continue to step up. Each time that happens it normally throws the fish off for a few days.

What is throwing the fish off now every day is the silt. Food and cover is buried in mud down to the lower part of Access 3. Fishing will likely be slow until the silt is mobilized by high flows, the fish adjust, but that could take a few months. Its mud so deep in many key areas that it might not be totally washed away this year. Sorry to be a downer, but this is the worst disaster to hit the creek in the 20 years I've been fishing here. Upside is it should slowly get better and recover.

mudhen · Senior Member

The mud on the redds is what has me concerned

SK60 · Senior Member

If you look along the edges at deer sign you will see fingerlings-not all (if any) perished. The small redd area at Cold Creek might be a different story.

By the way, good to meet you yesterday and glad you survived our new Warden's scrutiny of your license. If you didn't get a fish, you are not alone. The 4 others I talked to hadn't have any success.