I talked to my brother on Saturday morning. I mentioned that we were getting ready to pack up the car to go camping and fishing for the weekend.
?So you?re driving what, about 10 miles away then??
The North Yuba River is a bit more than 10 miles from our house. But it?s still a relatively short drive. We?re lucky to be within a couple of hours of some great trout rivers and the Yuba is just one of them. At about 60 miles away we can be there in an hour and a half.
We decided to camp next to the Yuba between the towns of Downiville and Sierra City. The last time we were in the little mountain town of Downiville I picked up a privately published guide to fishing the North Yuba River. There was one copy at the front desk of the Bed and Breakfast where we stayed and I saw 2 more at the local market and to this day those are the only copies I?ve seen. This little white book is a wealth of information on campsites, river access, what?s up and down river from each access point and what kinds of flies the author has had luck with at each section.
We packed up the fishing gear and the camping gear. Told the dog to ?get in the back? and off we went. Our first choice of campsites was packed with only 2 campsites left and both of those were within 20 or 30 feet of the highway. We took our chances and moved onto the next camp 5 miles further up the river.
Loganville camp was almost empty. We heard, but never saw, one other set of campers the whole weekend. The camps are far enough off of the road to make it easy to sleep at night and the river was just a 5 minute hike away.
After setting up camp we hiked down so see one of the most beautiful rivers I?ve ever seen. I tied on a Royal Wulff and my wife tied on a black water spider fly that I tied that morning. We started working our way upstream prospecting each of the pools and pockets. At first I was thinking that the water was too low and too cold for the trout. But as always happens, just about the time you?ve convinced yourself that there are no trout in the river something gulps at your fly. I raised my rod to set the hook but missed it. I never saw him but I?m sure he was at least 5 pounds and about as long as my forearm.
I got a few more strikes that evening, but they were so fast that by the time I tried to set the hook the fish was gone. On the way back down to the trail I cast to a couple rising trout but couldn?t get them to pay attention.
Back at camp we made a mess of fajitas and slurped down a few beers by the light of the Coleman lantern. No campfires this year. The Tahoe National Forest has a total ban on campfires because of the drought. We?ve already had 3 big fires this year and we don?t need any more.
We dragged ourselves out of bed later than usual on Sunday morning and finally hiked down about 10:30. The river was even prettier in the morning light. The canyon was deep enough that there was still some shade on the water but the sky was blue and the air was warm.
This time we both tied on a Royal Wulff and started working the pools. I had a fish snapping at my fly but not quite taking it. I decided to wait a moment to let him settle down and then present the fly again. He was in a pool on the opposite side of the river just below a vertical cliff of black rack. On the rock were some sort of plant that looked like lily pads clinging to the side of the rock.
I took a couple of false cast and let the fly go. My aim was perfect, but a bit long. The line and leader laid down on the water perfectly, but the fly landed on one of those giant lily pads. I gently pulled on the line and let the fly fall of the leaf looking exactly like a bug falling off of the plant.
BANG! The instant it hit the water the trout grabbed it. I lifted my rod and got him. I could feel that he was small so I just pulled the line in by hand to land him. He was a small rainbow about 8 inches long. I let him go both because I wanted him to get bigger and also because of the special regulations on this stretch of river. This part of the Yuba is part of a fishery conservation experiment. The rules are: 2 fish limit on trout over 10?. No trout under 10? may be kept. No bait fishing allowed. Single hook lures or flies only. No treble hooks, no worms, no salmon eggs.
My wife was working a small pool and getting some response. She was also getting those lightning fast strikes that were gone before you could react. We?d get tired of one pool and leap frog to the next one.
I?ll have to continue this on another post, but I first wanted to talk about Thunder the wonder puppy. Thunder is our 3 year old Husky/German Shepard mix who?s just the most loving dog you could imagine. He loves hiking and loves to swim. His only vices are pig ears and chasing squirrels. Well I was working one pool and getting some good responses. I got two strikes on two consecutive casts. I knew I was close to setting the hook on another one. As I was false casting to dry out the fly and present it one more time Thunder sees a squirrel on the other side of the river. So he takes a flying jump into the river to swim across and chase it and he lands right in my pool.
It doesn?t take a genius to know that every fish in that pool just ran for the bomb shelters. I whistled him back and he swam in a circle while giving me a look that seemed to say ?But Dad! There?s a squirrel! I have to protect you.?
As he came out of the water I couldn?t be too mad. He didn?t know any better. We walked up to the next pool and tried again. But this time I kept a close eye on him to make sure he stayed on the bank when I wanted him to.
Tomorrow I?ll tell you about stalking the big one and fishing a gold dredging pit.