Yuba Dud Trip

[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]Yuba is dead to me. I shall not fish it again until it has been properly laid to rest and resurrected into a new cycle of life.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I have had 3 poor trips this year. Fishing baseball. Three strikes (or lack of same) and you're out. Nobody I know has had any good trips for perch or walleye and very sporadic for the northerns.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Hit Oasis this morning with Tube Ike. 27 degree air temp and 46 degree water temp at our 7:30 launch. Fished various jigs and baits at all depths from 20 feet to 38 feet for the next three hours, with only a couple of bites and one fish lost halfway to the tube. Covered the entire perimeter of the dam end of the lake, from the ramp around past the bluffs on the opposite side. Nada, zip, zero, zilch.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Finally, as I was bottom bouncing a jig at fairly good speed, on the way across the lake back to the ramp, I got my first perch to the tube. A skinny 11 incher that was very pale and had sores on it. Yuck. Back in it went. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The lake was a flat bottomed bowl at 36 feet deep all the way across. When I reached the ramp area, I began to see a few more "potentials" on sonar and got a couple more bites. One of them turned out to be a healthy "footlong". Tried to release it too, but it was a floater. Only one I kept.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Saw lots of fish on sonar today, at all depths. From past experience, most of the marks were probably of the large-scaled, bugle-mouth kind. Only saw a few singles near the bottom. No large schools of what might be considered perch...or anything besides carp. I am sure there are more perch somewhere in the lake, but not in the damn dam end.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]It was a beautiful day to not catch fish. Once the sun came out the cool westerly breeze went away and it was lovely. Glass all morning and even glassier as we packed up to go just after noon. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Tube Ike was a newbie at perch jerkin'. I fixed him up with some super jigs and some experienced guidance, but that was not enough. He did not have sonar on his tube so he was fishing blind. Not good when huntin' perchies. Even though he was able to stay in the right depths, with a bit of walkie talkie assistance, he did not bring in a single fish. No married ones either.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Yuba...rest in peace.[/#0000ff]
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[Tube_Ike]

Yeah it was a beautiful day to not catch fish. Thanks for the advance.
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[MaDFisher55]

Sorry I missed it any way. Was a busy week last week and had to get caught up at home.

Come join us at Rock Cliff on Jordanell in the morning. Leaving Bountiful at 6:30

Anyone still planning on Huntington for Tigers Wed?

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[AnglerDan]

Sounds like missed the right trip. However you know what they say any day spent fishing is better then well...any other day..lol.

Whats up next for the week? I am thinking of hitting rockcliff on Wednesday. Should be good weather and the bows should be on the prowl.
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[albinotrout]

Don't know about next week but tomorrow is a go for Jordanelle at RockCliff.[]
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[albinotrout]

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Well having never fished yuba before, I guess it will be longer yet. Hope it makes a comeback before too long. From other posts earlier last month it looks like there are a lot of small perch fry that need some growing up. Any ideas on what the DWR will do with it to help it come back?
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[TubeDude]

[quote albinotrout]

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Well having never fished yuba before, I guess it will be longer yet. Hope it makes a comeback before too long. From other posts earlier last month it looks like there are a lot of small perch fry that need some growing up. Any ideas on what the DWR will do with it to help it come back?[/quote]

[cool][#0000ff]Don't blame DWR for anything to do with Yuba. Not much they can do to "manage" that lake since it is controlled by the water users and mother nature. Anglers have very little to do with the ecology. The best DWR can do is monitor the lake and report on their findings.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Those baby perch will likely never reach adulthood. Besides being heavily consumed by larger perch they are just reaching the right size to be interesting to walleyes and pike. And, while it seems like there are a lot of them, they are not in there by the millions as in years past. Last year there were huge schools of them in the basin near the dam. Hardly any on sonar yesterday.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I have lived and fished through several "boom and bust" cycles on Yuba. It is always the same. There will be one year when the balance tips...between predators and prey (baby perch) and then all species CRASH. It takes several years for the survivors to propagate and rebuild the populations to numbers great enough to provide good fishing.[/#0000ff]
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[peter805]

Not every fishing trip is a good one. I guess thats why
they call it fishing and not catching []
Trust me, I KNOW......................................
You will do better next time.
Thank you for the great report and pictures TD>

Peter
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