THE IRIDEUS - MARCH 2021
Almost exactly three months later, at about 8:30 a.m., we were launching Ben’s boat onto the Yuba River just a few hundred yards east of the Highway 20 Bridge. It was what has been becoming a typical Northern California winter day: sunny with blue skies peppered with clouds that occasionally occluded the sun and dropped the temperature to near what winter should be. Ben said that the skwalas had been emerging in the afternoon, so we would spend that morning nymphing, and switch after lunch to our dry-fly rigs.
Skwalas on the Yuba By: Josh Genser
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ettling up in the parking lot on Putah Creek last November, Mark Likos asked our guide, Ben Thompson, on what other waters he guided. He told us that he spent a lot of time on the Yuba River and recommended that we try it in February, when the Skwala hatch meant that there was great dry fly fishing. I think that dry fly fishing is far and away the most fun that can be had in fishing, so we signed up right there and then.
Nymphing on the Yuba was very much like doing so on the Lower Sacramento River: nine-and-ahalf-foot six-weight nymphing rods rigged with a strike indicator above three nymphs, usually an egg pattern, a rubber legs and a caddis pupa. Casting is water-loaded, which requires little technique or experience, and avoids the tangles and snags that would come with air casting that much line with so many hinge points. The strikes on the Yuba seemed to be more tentative than are the strikes one experiences on the Sacramento, such that we missed several until we learned to be more trigger-happy. And then, of course, we had to deal with the adrenaline rush which caused us to set the hook too enthusiastically, breaking our flies off before we could even feel the fish on the hook. Eventually we calmed down and figured it out
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