Lower Yuba River (8/28/24)

Ben Thompson: The Yuba is nymphing very well and we are still seeing some hopper action but we are on the tail end of the most epic hopper summer I have ever seen out there. We should be able to get fish to eat hoppers til about mid September, weather dependent. As we move more into fall more and more salmon will come into the river to drop eggs and the trout will start to key in on them. Some years at some point in early fall the bulk of the salmon will be spawning in the upper stretches which closes Sept 1 and a lot of the trout will follow them up there to feed. When more salmon start spawning in the lower river, it becomes prime time egg bite conditions on the Yuba. Fish will not only eat the eggs but the bugs that the salmon kick up when digging redds. October, November and often December are a great time to fish out there and hopefully we get a few steelhead in the mix. Caddis, baetis, perdigons and other classic attractor nymphs run in tandem with an egg can be very productive.