Flat water kayaking on the Feather River in Sutter County, CA

I was hoping some of you would consider kayaking on the Feather River in Sutter County. This is less than an hour from Sacramento, and spectacularly beautiful in parts, particularly south from Boyd Pump Boat Ramp/Oswald Road to Nicolaus. The river is cut by a weir at Sunset/Paseo Road south of Live Oak, and by a six foot and apparently dangerous fall south of Shanghai Bend (about even or north of Stewart Road. For the section below the Shanghai Bend rapids, the best access in is at the Boyd Pump Boat Ramp, near the Oswald Road intersection with Garden Highway. A good pullout, but its a short run, is at Star Bend Road. Right where the river makes a right angle turn east there is a very gentle slope out and short walk to a rocked road. Its about 0.2 miles of walking to where you can park your car here. For some additional information see California Department of Fish and Game's website, under Feather River Wildlife Area, and its subparts, Abbott Lake, O'Connor Lakes, Star Bend, Lake of the Woods, and Nelson Slough (not to mention the semi-secret Morse Road unit off of Live Oak Boulevard, south of Lomo and north of Yuba City). These lands are publicly owned and open for hunting, fishing, picnicing, bird watching, boating, etc. You should have no interference in pulling out at Star Bend or Nelson Slough.

You can access the river at Yuba City, but that put you above the falls and rapids, The falls can be a real trap. A good size aluminum river boat with an big engine lost power up stream, and it took a week and professional help to extract from where it sat, stern down in the hole with the falling water holding it down. Countiing south from the rapids, access is at the Boyd Pump Boat Ramp, Starr Bend, and then Nelson slough under the Highway 99 bridge at Nicolaus.

If you go to the left side of the river, there is a boat ramp at Star Bend, and you can pull out at the old bridge ramp north of Nicolaus.

There are maps at my facebook page, Francis Coats, and there is also a map on google maps under kayaking and canoeing on the Feather River..

The Feather is a major river, but it has a lot of sand bars and so relativly little power boat traffic

Come up and take a look.

Frank Coats