Me and my daughter hit Yuba this morning. I decided to sleep in when I woke up and saw that it was snowing, we got there around 11? By the time I had the tent set up my daughter had already iced four perch. The first 5 perch were about 8" with fat bellies (eggs) so we switched to a bigger jig hoping for bigger fish. Three more at 10" so we switched to 3.5" tubes tipped with chub meat (the same thing I use for the big cutts at the berry) that was the ticket. It kept most of the smaller ones just nipping at it but the bigguns were lovin’ it. After about 2 hours we had our limit with half of them 11-12". The biggest at almost 13" and looked like a hunchback. I had a pike pole setup and had four solid bites but couldn’t get a good hook set, when I finally did I lost him after about 3 seconds. What a rush!!! Thanks LH2 for the tips.
All 20 perch were full of eggs. I broke my camera a couple weeks ago so no pics except for my phone [pirate]. Ice was roughly 6-8" thick, I never checked. There were some wheelers out on the ice and no slush at all.
TD and I were leaving at about 11 or 11:30 the fishing was good for us as well…
Where were you set up???
I went straight to the west side after I got all my stuff loaded on the sled. I was in a red dodge pickup. I’d laugh if you were the guys north of me that left shortly after I got there.
Thanks for the update I hit Yuba yesterday 1/12/08 and I tried the west side there is about 4 inches of ice and it was fairly solid I fished by the dam with 3 other people and we iced 5 Perch between us they were all about 10-11 inches but the fishing was slow compared to what I have had at painted rocks. There were a lot less people than painted rocks but the fishing was a ton slower. We caught most of the fish in about 20 feet of water the deeper we went the less action there was. Still good to get out though. I had my little 4 year old with me and he had a blast so it was worth it. Next time I am going to painted rocks if I can go when it is a non weekend too many people on the weekends.
I was wondering about how many people would be on the ice today and it wasn’t that bad as long as you weren’t fishing by the island. Something about that island that draws the crowds. I never had anyone near me the whole time. I drilled a hole 32’-the finder didn’t pick anything up-27’ same thing, 17’ bingo! Stayed in the same spot untill we left.
That was probably us.
**We saw you guys toss a couple of perch out on the ice. **
We were fishing in about the same depth…I think. We drilled a few holes and were catching fish from the get go. I never dropped my transducer in to check the depth or the fish activity. No need.
No problem dude, glad you had fun.
You can laugh, it was us …
We hit the ice today (14 ) and had our limits by 9:30 its a good spot for now some time maybe we will meet…