Lower Sac & Yuba Fly Fishing Report

Hogan Brown Reports on 1/13/2104

Lower Sacramento River: The Lower Sac hasn’t changed much sense my last post outside of the weather has been a bit warmer on average. For a few weeks it was really cold, in the low 40’s in Redding and the fish really seemed to only be active during the warmest part of the day. The last time I was on the river it was a bit more consistent throughout the day as the weather was a bit warmer. The Lower Sac in the winter is traditionally not a huge numbers game but personally in Dec/Jan I catch some of the biggest rainbows of the year so I see it as a fair trade. I have been getting most of my fish on rubber legs and pheasant tail variations almost exclusively. Fishing should remain consistent throughout January and into February but will be very influenced on the weather.

Lower Yuba River:with the last storm moving through I spent a few days on the Lower Yuba River guiding and fishing on my own with my good buddy, guide, and amazing musician Chuck Ragan. I tend to believe that any time the Yuba comes up in flows from its 500-700cfs low and gets a little to even a lot of color it is going to fish really well this winter. With the last storm and color coming out of deer creek via squirrel creek the river has been fishing pretty darn good. Most of the fish I have been catching have come on attractor egg patterns, rubber legs, and Pheasant tail variations. Didn’t do much swung fly fishing but the conditions are pretty good for that as well. With more rain coming in this week and weekend I think the river will continue to have some color and fishing will remain pretty darn good. I have seen limited bug activity. There were some baetis hatching midday but with the clarity I didn’t see any fish coming up to feed. I have not seen any skwalas and don’t imagine they will be out until we get some consistently warmer weather.