Lower Yuba & Sac Fly Fishing Report

Hogan Brown Reports on 3.30.2016

Here is what is going on and if you are looking to book a day I still have some late spring and Summer striper/trout dates open.
June 10, 13, 17, 27, 28,

July 6, 11, 13, 14, 25, 29,

Aug 1-3, 5, 6, 9, 20, 27

Evening Shad/bass May 3, 5, 6, 16, 17, 18,

Lower Yuba River

Flows are down to about 4000-3800cfs. I imagine this is going to be the flow for a bit. Flows are more then fishable from the boat and from the bank if you know where to go. Wade fishing you have to pick and choose your spots.  Clarity is perfect as I like the river with color. Clarity is definitely in the range where i fish “off color water” bugs but have plenty of confidence that I can catch fish. Not fishing small mayflies or caddis patterns. All that said Friday was the last time I was on the river and I struggled to find fish. The fish did not seem to be where they should be in what I consider my normal high water spots that I like to fish from say 4-3000cfs. Not sure if they just haven’t found the spots I was fishing as flows just dropped mid week. They still could of been hunkered in the deep water on the bottom or I just was fishing the wrong spots…who knows. We did catch a few, but nothing like I thought we would.

Also the boat ramp at sycamore is closed and it sounds like will be for awhile as I talked to the attendant and he said the creek under cut part of the road and his boss doesn’t want anyone in that part of the park…so I can’t imagine it is top priority for Yuba County to re do the road for the ramp. When I asked if they were going to re do it soon he said …well I can’t imagine any time soon…
There is definitely some new water… The channel below Sycamore is completely changed and has left the old channel high and dry and cut a new one that takes a different angle to meet up with the side channel. Looks like the riffle where the side channel and main channel come back together is going to be REALLY good. That was the only glaring difference that I found but it was obvious that many of the riffles will be VERY different with regards to where the buckets and seams are…though the course of the river doesn’t seem to have changed much any where else.

Saw a few march browns and caddis flying around and found bug life in the rocks where I got out and flipped them over. Still some wood and timber floating down river occasionally as well. Didn’t see any fish rise.
Fish should be pretty darn Hungary so I imagine fishing is going to be REALLY good soon.

Lower Sacramento River Trout:

The River was ramped up for about a week or two to 20,000cfs to make room for snow melt or dilute toxic muck coming out of the mine up river, depends on who you talk to. The river has dropped back down to 5000cfs coming out of Keswick and this should really kick into gear the spring trout fishing. I will be on the river guiding Wednesday and Thursday so I will have a good idea about how things are going then but I can’t imagine it won’t be good.

Lower Sac Striper Fishing

has been slow for the fly angler with the high flows and off color water. I went out of Butte City and the water is a bit to high and the clarity is still a bit to brown to have any confidence. I am going to go back out Friday and poke around in hopes the lower flows will have migrated down and the clarity will improve. It is going to be a great striper year on the Lower Sac this spring and summer!