Long Weekend Report

Fished the Lower Yuba and Lower Feather this weekend. Lower Yuba fished surprisingly well. Many years this time of the fall the fish go into a protein coma where the sulk on the bottom full of eating eggs for a month making fishing tough. This was not the case the fish seemed to have moved into their winter holding water...more bug type water...and are eating pretty actively. There was a decent size 14 light mayfly hatch and a few caddis hatching midday that brought a fair number of fish to the surface. Looked to be pretty good dry fly opportunity but my anglers were just learning the sport and still working on the whole nymphing game. We caught most of our fish on egg attractors and small mayfly and caddis nymphs and pupa. I was really happily surprised about how the river fished and excited for my coming trips out there.

The Lower Feather was another story. We floated from Oroville Park to Palm Ave and after last weeks multi boat trip where everyone hooked multiple fish and there was still great numbers of salmon around I was expecting a good day. I was surprised after the first few runs by how many salmon had disappeared...it was Jim Jones rolled through with the cool aid and everyone was drinking. The upper low flow is nearly devoid of salmon from what I saw with a few here and there as you move down towards the outlet. The high flow had a few here a few there as well but I would say it seemed river wide that 90% of the salmon are gone. This more then anything moves fish and mixes things up. We managed a few fish but nothing like it has been. The feather is an option all the way through the first part of January but the hot fishing of Oct early Nov is ending fast.

In other news...Notre Dame moves up to #3 in the BCS with the loss by the Tide...How great was that to watch. Texas A&M beat the tide. Notre Dame had a work mens like win against Boston College which was nice after the scare last weekend. We got Wake Forrest this weekend then wrap it up with USC. Things are looking good!!!!
Hogan Brown