Lower Yuba River Fly Fishing Report ~ Social Distancing Edition #1 ~ 3/18/2020

Well, much has changed since my last report with the world wide situation of C19, and 2 feet of new snow here at the top of the ridge, 4 miles north of Nevada City. Northern California has gone from warm and dry weather, to cold and snowy, on the verge of the official spring equinox. During the big storm, high wind and snow laden conifers fell across power lines and roads, all over the foot hills. I’m still without power, and lucky my landlord, who lives next me, has a generator he periodically runs. Yesterday, I had to try to go into town for food and supplies. I was not sure if the roads were even open. While trying to exit the property, my truck got stuck three times, and each time I would shovel the vehicle free. Once I got on North Bloomfield road into town, the roads were in good shape, just wet, no ice, and a few new debris piles and trees to navigate around. I was extremely grateful. Once in town, I made the rounds and was quite surprised at how nice and polite most of the people were. I did encounter some aggressive and rude people barging at will in the grocery store, treating humans like pylons. There was still plenty of food at SPD though, and I didn't hoard a bunch of items. I did purchase more than my normal supply, especially coffee.

~ Wild Yuba Cookie Cutter ~

Now that we are supposed to be socially distanced from other large groups of humans, I’ve been spending my time reading, writing, tying and upgrading my PowerPoint programs. I’ve also been thinking about the future business plans and the fallout from C19. In the last week I’ve had to cancel 3 back to back presentations, including lodging, and a car rental. I can understand completely why, especially with large groups at fly club meetings. Many unknowns…Right now there is no safer place for me than being on the river alone, or with a couple of people who are in good health, and love fly fishing for trout.

So before the storm on the 13th, the Lower Yuba River was fishing pretty good for that day. The flow was about the same as the last month before, 970 cubes, sunny, yet really windy with the low pressure setting up off the coast. I put my guests on heavy indo rigs with rubber leg skwala stones, either trialing a baetis nymph, or a red copper John. We got into a few, mostly on the stone. There were fish rising, but the wind was too hard to punch through with the dry fly set up. There were a ton of bugs out early in the day around 10am with March Brown spinners hovering above the riffles, mixed in with some PMD spinners, and caddis. The trout have been very interested for the past two weeks in regards to caddis hatches, especially on the emerging pupa rising to the surface. There are about six different caddis flies out, from a size 12 down to an 18. 

I flipped cobblestones next to the riffle we were working and instantly saw skwala stoneflies hiding underneath. Under one rock there was a large orgy of 11 adults doing their thing. The fish were still receptive to eating skwala dries in the afternoon, but due to the strong south west wind, it was extremely hard to get a good downstream fly first presentation that was needed. I’m looking forward to getting back on the river in the next few days, hopefully sooner, then later.

So after the storm passed through, the Lower Yuba River rose up to 1,845 cubes rather quickly as you can see above. This really helps the fishing conditions, flushing food, organic material, and creating new and more productive feeding lanes for large trout. Right now the Yuba is flowing at 1,166 and seems to be leveling out for now. There is a bunch of snow down low that will still have to melt at some point and that could keep the river up a little more. It just depends on how quickly the bulk of the melt will be, or how slow.  

Deer Creek came up to 883 cfs, that’s a really good flow for such a short period of time, another flush. Currently the creek is at 192 cubes. It’s been snowing all day, about 3 inches so far, to add to the 1-2 feet that fell on Saturday night. Looks like we’ll get a shot another good shot of precip this coming Monday, with sunny skies in between systems. The storm door is open, and it looks like it’ll be this way until the end of the month. For the straight scoop on the technical side of weather and snow forecasting, check out Bryan Allegretto’s site https://opensnow.com/dailysnow/tahoe My go to source for tracking weather systems that effect the Northern Sierra watersheds. 

Who wants to go fishing?