yuba?

[bkidder]

hey, has anyone been to yuba lately? im curious when its going to be ice free. id appreciate any info or recent fishing reports!

thanks, bkidder
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[ocean]

I have been thinking the same thing!! Ice should be coming off . Fishing should be good right after ice off. I plan on doing a weekday trip sometime next week or maybe even this sunday if my freind cant go ice fishing with me . My wifes grandpa says that he used to nail the pike along time ago right after ice off .
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[bkidder]

i havent fished yuba in years! what would you recommend using right after ice off? any areas i should focus on?

thanks, bkidder
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[ocean]

I am gonna go after the big bows and pike. Gonna use the usual jigs and spoons and some jigs that Tubedude gave me a while back .They have produced fish for me. [] I usually target the dam area it seems to hold some big fish.
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[bkidder]

big bows sound good to me! do you vetical jig, or cast and retrieve? do you tip them with bait? thanks for answering my questions ocean!
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[ocean]

I usually fish from shore when i have my kids .I cast out deep and try fast retrieves to slow from bottom to middle and top. You never know what mood these fish are in and what depth. Yuba produces some big fish. Here is some pics of the bows and pike i have caught last fall and from the year before.
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[petty4life]

I dont know about those pic's something looks kinda fishie... that dog in the second one looks like its been photoshopped... LOL[]
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[bkidder]

those are some great looking fish! thanks for sharing those pics. hopefully the ice is off, or coming off soon. i think yuba may be the perfect place to go get some of the spring bugs out of the boat!
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[ocean]

If you go and work some bugs of your boat do it before noon. The wind there starts to kick up and usually blows for an hour or two non stop. I need to get my boat out to and get it going. Let the rangers there know you are going out they are pretty cool there great bunch of guys.
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[Nica]

Them are some nice fish ocean, nice job.
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[TigerTrout]

I drove down yesterday, too warm up here, had to be open water I thought. WRONG. Only open water was the shallow cockleburr cove on the north west. No fish in that 6" of water, I checked. Ice along the shore was marginal if you wanted to walk on it. (I didn't) I you had a plank or a ladder you'd have been OK. Ice next to the ramp was almost 2" thick. Come on open water!!!!!!

[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]The pike will be spawning right after iceout. Look for them in shallow coves with some stickups or flooded brush, if the water level is high enough. The big shallow bay on the north side to the east of the narrows is one spot. Otherwise, cruise the shallow shorelines from Painted Rocks up toward Lafayette, casting to structure. The fish will be shallow and aggressive.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Although trout do not spawn well in Yuba, they still go through the motions. Many will try to go up the Sevier River but there is no spawning gravel. Still others will try to build nests along gravel banks in the main lake or on wind washed points. You can walk the shoreline and see them cruising in close. They are not feeding much but will smack spinners or other flashy lures.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The perch are probably spawning right now, under the ice. Walleyes will be right behind them, but are still not very abundant. Hopefully they will get off a good spawn this year and some of the newly hatched fry will escape the hordes of hungry perch.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I plan to hit the upper lake (tubing) as soon as the ice is off. [/#0000ff]
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[bkidder]

hey, thanks for the information guys! it sounds like we'll be tossing lures in the shallows!
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[Gorgefanatic]

How long ago was it that you caught those nice rainbows and pike? I thought that when they drained the lake to repair the dam most of the pike died
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[ocean]

Oh there are a lot of pike still in there and they are thriving. Last year the biologists did some net studies and they were pulling out pike averaging 24 inches. I dont know how the sevier runs but it appears it goes out and back into yuba. I bet Tubedude would know the specifics of that. Some of those bow i caught either last year or the year before. They are probably hard to find now that the perch have decimated the fathead minnows. Hopefully the bows can figure out that the perchies taste better!![] Also they stocked 2 inch tiger trout last year and i wonder if they survived the perch invasion. [pirate] The trout were stocked after yuba began to fill. I didnt bother fishing yuba till my daughter kept nagging me about going there and i hooked up with some nice size bows. The pike started coming on strong last year.
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[TigerTrout]

Yes, I am a glutton for punishment. I drove down there again today thinking it's any time now. No, the lake is coming up but it is still freezing to the edges at night. Don't think anyone wants to be out on the ice at Painted Rocks, may be in better shape down on the dam end. Warmer every day.....
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[ocean]

That sucks. I am anxious to take my boat and toon out on the water. Maybe by the end of next week there will be more open water.[]
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]When Yuba was drained for dam repairs/maintenance, the water level dropped to not much more than a puddle. There were fish of all species that survived by fighting their way up the drought affected Sevier River and toughing it out in some of the deeper holes. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]When the lake filled again, at the end of the drought, rainbows were planted to provide a fishery until the other species could recover. Perch were also planted...but no walleyes or pike. Evidently there were a few large pike that survived because they had a good spawn the last two years and there are lots of one and two year class pike in the lake. Far more than there are walleyes. [/#0000ff]

[#0000ff]The big story is the perch. They exploded and have completely overrun the lake. DWR has refused to open Yuba to perch fishing and the perch have demolished the fathead minnows that were being used by the rainbows to get big and fat. There are still some nice rainbows, but not like the fall of 2005, when schools of six to eight pound trout were chasing schools of fathead minnows around like bass chasing shad. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The fall fishing in 2006 was dismal. You couldn't keep perch off your lines being fished for trout, and the trout were mostly no shows. The few that were caught were skinnier than before and many hand anchor worms...a sign of stress.[/#0000ff]

[#0000ff]Pike are now the glamor fish for Yuba. There are quite a few over 30 inches now, and many coming up the ranks that will be over 20 to 24 inches this year. Still, even though they eat a lot of perch, they cannot begin to cull the herd. The only real natural enemy of the perch right now is the perch themselves. They eat their own young because that is all there is for them to eat...besides the trout fingerlings. And, they DO eat the trout but rainbows do not eat perch.[/#0000ff]

[#0000ff]Since Yuba remains off limits for keeping perch until 2008, it will be interesting to see what happens this year. After a big perch spawn, with no predation, and no food, will the perch stunt or crash before we get to fish for them? We shall see.[/#0000ff]

[#0000ff]I plan to conduct some research of my own. I love to catch those nasty pike...and eat them too.[/#0000ff]
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[fuzzyfisher]

ya got it right there TD the Pike are now the head honchos in Yuba right now.. i have never seen as many in there as the last 2 years.

years ago if someone said they were going to Yuba to target pike throw the ice i would have thought them a little off.[]. but now the pike seam to be doing much better than ever before.

the out look on the perch may not be all that grim tho. even tho we cant take perch from Yuba just yet. one more factor will come into play this year that to this point has not effected Yuba as years past.. and that is the carp are makeing a real comeback fast as well! there fry was what realy sustanded the lake for years and years. and well be the down fall of the lake again when there biomass get's to high.. carp can be a real lake killer far more of a thret to Yuba than over running perch..
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]Carp will definitely be a factor. They spawn heavily and put millions of young into the lake for food...but for only a short time. They grow so darn fast that by fall they are too big for many predators to snack on. That leaves several months without a source of small tidbits. Feast and famine.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]We also did not mention catfish. As you know, some of them survived too, but not enough to provide a very good fishery yet. But...that will also come to pass.[/#0000ff]
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