Yuba River Fly Fishing Report

Jordan Romeny reports on 4.4.19

Currently just over 6000 cfs the Yuba has been inconsistently firing. One word to sum up the spring so far “volatile.” The windows of fishing open and shut quickly right now. When the window is open the river is an all-out numbers game. The trout in there are hungry and eating well. But even the weakest
of storms are charging the flows to un fishable flows. I’ve always claimed the river to be a decent but inconsistent on foot wading river. The runs are big and
take a long time to fish. 

Plus, the fish move around a bunch so chancing that you are in a good run on foot is throwing chance into the wind. You may have had success in the past in a certain section but the next time you are there the run can only have a small percentage of fish in it that day. The fish seem to
move around almost daily in the Yuba. I get the question a lot about what is too big to fish the Yuba. Flows are always relative to the drainage so even know normal fishing flows are 1000-2000cfs, 5000cfs is still a go. As long as there is clarity to the river you can always find a nice soft edge where they like to lay up. The bigger the flow however, there won’t be as many edges to find. Now add a busy day out there with other anglers you may wait in

line to fish it. Decent river on foot yes, EXCELLENT river in the boat. In a full day drift boat cruise, we fish every section on the river. We cover so much water that we will find the fish. I floated the river two days ago
and had an above average grab. I am really bad at keeping trac of fish numbers but I would venture a guess that we fed over 20 fish. We found the one two punch with our nymph set up and didn’t need to change it. An olive and yellow sz 10 rubber legs, and a march brown emerger were the ticket. It seemed
like every other fish was on either bug. I was surprised with the lack of rising fish due to the amount of March Browns and PMDs hatching. The
birds were on them but the fish were reluctant to come to the surface. We did manage a few dry fly eats in one key section. I think its only a matter of days before the dry fly bite gets really good. For those who are wondering how long the bite will last? I think it’s going to be a tremendous year out
there. The bugs are back, the fish are strong and healthy. As long as the river stays where it is or less it’s going to be really really good.