New Fly Wednesday and fishing reports…a pre thanksgiving feast of information!

In honor of thanksgiving and mass consumption of food I am posting big and meaty blog post…reports,  plus new fly wednesday…So much good stuff.

General Report - there is big storm coming in to Nor Cal forecasted for Fri-Mon…supposedly the biggest of the winter so far so reports will most likely change…I imagine the Lower Sac will blow out and the Lower Yuba will pick up some color but remain fishable. Butte Creek should blow but drop pretty quick. Lots of good winter fishing coming up…Winter steelhead on Yuba, Sac, and butte Creek…big winter trout on the L.Sac…winter stripers on the Sac…Skwala and baetis hatches on the Yuba…lots of goodness.

Open Dates:
Dec 23, 27-31
Jan 2, 4-9, 18, 19, 24, 25
Feb 8, 9, 14-16, 28

Lower Yuba River –I spent a few days over the last week or two on the Yuba and fishing was good to poor… just seemed on the day and the mood of the fish. Flows are steady at about 750-800cfs and clarity is what I would call gin clear. There are still salmon up on redds in the “lower river” around Hammond Grove area.  Most fish that clients caught came on egg patterns and I couldn’t find many that wanted to eat bugs even though I tried switching out all sorts flies. There was a sparse baetis hatch on a few of the days that smaller fish seemed to key on in the flats but I only saw one or two rises from fish that I would consider stringing up a dry fly rod for. Talked to a few other guides and eggs seemed to be the most consistent producer but a few fish were caught swinging streamers lower in the river.

Nice Yuba Fish from the last week

 Lower Sacramento River – Fishing has been pretty consistently fair if you balance out the tough days and good days…the last rains blew out the lower river for a few days and the forecasted rain coming in this weekend should blow out the river for a while as well. The river seems to have entered into its winter period where one day can be good the next fair. The Lower river around Red Bluff down has good numbers of steelhead moving around and trout fishing can be good as well.

Nice Sac Fish from last week

Butte Creek – Flows are LOW around 95cfs but this weekends rain should move some water down the creek and get some fish up the creek and moving around. Fishing should continue to improve as long as we continue to get rain. December and January are usually best. That said I have seen some pics and heard some reports of big fish way up in the canyon…most likely big resident rainbows but who knows.

Sports Report…Been a tough few weeks for the Irish. Loses at ASU (which I was present for), Northwestern, and Louisville have hurt…that said I was pretty surprised with our early season victories in the sense that we are VERY young and have suffered some key injuries on defense. My faith is Evert is a big shaken but maybe this is what he is as the National Championship year many of his faults were hidden by a stellar defense. Always hard to be patient when you have a stud like Malik Zaire in the wings but I have always believed that it is hard to know if you are not at practice and in film everyday. Hopefully we can end strong this weekend at USC…beating the Trojans is always a good way to end the season as we are most likely going to the Pawtucket big packers bowl or something.

Go Irish…Unfortunately it was down hill from here

The dudes stayed positive though…ice cream helped

New Fly Wednesday

So for this Wednesday I am going to share one my new patterns just like last week…This fly I have been working on for about 3 years now. It is called Hogan’s March Madness Nymph. I came up with it to fish during the March Brown hatches on the Lower Sac and Lower Yuba but has become a great all around Spring Mayfly nymph, working as a PMD nymph as well in the smaller sizes.

In designing the fly I took the basic flashback Pheasant tail and began tweaking it to match a march Brown nymph. I added dubbing that matched the lighter cream brown of the thorax of a march brown nymph paired with a Brown wing case with a thin strip of flash underneath to give it a bit of flash and appearance of a splitting wing case. I also added some gills along with lead to create the wide silhoutte of a clinger nymph.  vvThe game changer is when I added the CDC under legs with the Mallard Flank over them. Many flies have CDC collars or legs but in the drift the CDC moves all over and spins around the head with the flank over the CDC I have found that the CDC stays pined back along the fly better. Now why the CDC changed this fly or made it catch more fish I have no idea all I know is CDC is an incredibly cool material and rarely when added to a fly does that fly catch less fish.

This fly fished really well in the 12 and 14 on the Lower Sac and Lower Yuba during the March Brown hatches during Late Feb through Mid April but what really sold me on this fly was when I started tying it in 16 and found it to fish well into May and June on these rivers as a PMD nymph. I think the versatility of this fly is that fact that it fishes in different sizes for multiple spring and summer hatches.