Lower Yuba on a Tuesday

Spent tuesday on the lower Yuba river with two good clients of mine. The flows on L. Yuba came up on April 2 from 900cfs to 1200. Then with the rains on sat and sunday the river came up to about 1600cfs and now has settled down around 1200 again. Deer Creek peaked at 450cfs and has sense come down to normal levels. On tuesday the river had about 2-4 feet of visibility, really a perfect tint to the water a slight brown. I figured going into the day that fishing was either going to be really good or really tough with the flow increase and color the fish were going to either be totally screwed up or go on a feeding binge. Neither of my predictions were the case. Fishing was fair. Not great but not bad.

Morning was pretty cold but the day did warm up as the sun came out but there was still some cold wind gusts through out the day. Wind wasn't bad but it was an issue and did keep that hatches in the sporadic category. There was sporadice hatches of grey drakes and I did see good numbers of PMD's at times, which is a first for this year. PMD's were LARGE, #14, and we did fool a few fish on Qugley's Film Critic and Hogan's Wing Man with Hogan's sipper in PMD as a dropper. I did feel that there were enough bugs on the water at various times to warrant good numbers of fish on the surface but I think the water clarity kept them down. Most of the fish we caught were on nymphs and in very shallow water (1-3'). We didn't hook a fish in the deeper runs which I think is a symptom of the water clarity. Almost all except a fish or two came on the Jimmy Leggs which again shows how the water clarity affected the fish as I haven't been able to buy a fish on a rubber legs lately.

Overall it was a great day and this warm weather we are having today and is forcasted for the next couple days should get the Yuba really going. Myself I will be out on the Lower Sac the next few days chasing the first pushes of migratory stripers. Over and out.