Butte Creek, Yuba River

Christmas Time Fishing

Fishing has been pretty slow. Winter flows are showing with low flows and no rain. The weather had a hard freeze warning for a week and we even got snow, but still no rain for the upcoming year. I’ve been tying flies mostly focusing on nymphs, good stuff.

Butte Creek
I’ve caught one fish here not counting a pike minnow and thought I’d give it a try again but the flows were very low. I believe around 98 CFS when I was there. I fished below the HWY 70 bridge up to the dam and saw a few salmon hanging around. There was a small hatch of BWO in the afternoon which was pretty cool to see but no rises at all. I will have to try again when the flows are right.

Yuba River
Christmas Eve and Christmas are the days I fished this river and manage to catch something. The flows are also very low at 740 CFS. I fished up the HWY 20 Bridge with no success. The fish were rising the in afternoon to some cream-colored PMDs but they weren’t interested in what I was throwing at them.
Next I fished below the bridge covering a ton of water but with no success. After I thought about why I wasn’t successful, I moved to a deep pool and tight-lined nymphed it with a take that I lost. I tried again and was about to give up when I finally hooked up a fair-sized fish. The next day I went to the same spot and hooked a nice pounder.
Found a few skwala adults and a fair amount of nymphs on the banks. Can’t wait for spring.

First fish I’ve caught in a while
Yuba fighter
Lake Oroville

Fall Lake Oroville Coho

Starting my first blog to keep track of my fishing adventures and reports.

Lake Oroville
The lake has been very low, however the fishing has been phenomenal right until now. At this point, water has just gotten too low (1,394, 893.8 AF) and there simply isn’t any room where I was fishing to accommodate boats or other fishermen. Amanda and I have caught several Coho Salmon to harvest for the season and now I’m calling it until next year.

Nick’s First Coho
Manda’s First Coho 

North Fork Feather River
The NNFR flows are at 341 CFS. The water is cold but the trout are out there. There were hooked several fish that were at least 15-18” but I couldn’t land one. They fought hard and came straight at me rather than away. Yes I was noob and blame spin fishing for Coho for my rusty fly fishing skills. I was able to find a few takes on midges but most of the big ones were from PT nymphs.
I’m planning on trying to fish as much as I can before the winter weather starts to close in.

Conclusion
Winter is coming…
With Thanksgiving over, the weather is going to start getting cold and hopefully that will mean some rain and snow for the coming year. I lost a lot of nymphs on the NF so I’m going to tie some more before I go out tomorrow before school starts up.