Christmas Tradition

high and muddy water

I am not a Christmas guy. I am not a Christmas music/spirit/presents person. I’m more of a thanksgiving type of guy.  My wife LOVES Christmas and she loves decorating the house as what she calls a “Christmas village.” I didn’t want decorations, she wanted decorations so we compromised and had decorations! The things we do for the women we love.

Anyway, one Christmas tradition that I love is Christmas fishing with Ol Pops. For the past few years we have been hitting the fishing hole after Christmas Breakfast and this year was no different. However, there was one difference. Nor Cal had some rain around that time so our rivers and sloughs are VERY high and flowing quickly. 

Deer is to the left of the gate

We hit Lisbon slough for a few quick hours of fishing. We brought chicken livers and nightcrawlers hoping for some big cats. I was hoping to hit a specific spot I have on Lisbon but that spot was flooded so we just hit a new spot. 

Just a great view

I tossed two lines in and my dad tossed in one. We waited and waited but no bites. Meanwhile it was a cold but beautiful day in Woodland. In fact there were three does that decided to make an appearace on the other side of the slough. We watched them as they ate grass and hung out and even though we weren’t getting bites, it was cool to see these woodland creatures hanging out.

We ended the day with no fish but it was a great time out with my dad enjoying our fantastic tradition! 

Total fish: 0

Break That Bank!

Ol Pops came into town and we decided to go fishing for a bit in the afternoon. I knew exactly where I was going to take him; the bee hive! The bee hive is a spot I have on Lisbon slough. In the past we have had success with crappies and I caught my personal best catfish there so we gave it a try.

Previously my dad had been skunked here. He has only been to the bee hive twice and both times he went home empty handed.  I only have two times I have been skunked here, both of those times were with my buddy Jarred. That is because Jarred is bad luck!

We arrived at the fishing hole at around 5pm so I had plenty of time to get into a groove. I started with a quick cast with a bobber into the feeder creek for a small bass. Beat the skunk. A few more casts, a couple more fish and then switched to the main canal. Ol pops went straight for the catfish set up and a night crawler. I set up my heavy catfish rod but had no takers on the nightcrawlers. A bit later I was able to get into a small bluegill and replaced my worm with a gill and hoped for the best. My dad did the same. We were hoping for some huge cats but nothing big seemed to be going for the gills. 

After a while I switched to a slip-bobber rig and went to work for some crappies. For whatever reason nothing was biting so I kept changing the depth of my bobber and the distance of my cast. Eventually I found a hole about 7 feet in front of where we were and about 16 inches of leader length. First I caught a nice blue gill which I released. Then I started seeing some activity on top so I tossed my line in and I reeled in a nice 11 inch bass. 

Meanwhile my dad tossed his line into the feeder creek and got into his first bluegill of the day. He continued to cast there and started catching small bass and bluegill, so he finally beat the skunk at the beehive. 

A bit later I tossed my line in, my bobber danced around a little before it went down and I caught my first decent fish of the day, a nice 12.5 inch bass.   

I continued to cast within five feet of the same spot and as it got darker, the bites were more plentiful. At one point I had a light but swift takedown , so I reeled in and I got into a 10 inch catfish, my first catfish of the day. My final fish was just before it got too dark to see my bobber. I tossed my line in, it dunked once and then disappeared. I reeled in and something took off with my line. I reeled in, my dad got the net and it hid under the weeds. My dad dipped the net into the weeds and eventually came out with what would be the last fish of the day, a 14 inch Largemouth bass. I ended up putting the two bass on the stringer and filleted them up for what will be my first (possibly of many) end of the summer fish fry! (More to come on this idea later) 

In all, one of my better days this summer even though it has been a good summer overall. I was also excited that I got into multiple species today, which is always cool. I am glad my dad was able to get into fish and see me catch some decent fish at the bee hive because that makes him believe in the spot a little more than before.  All together my dad and I had a 17 fish day. 

 

Well that’s it for now. Good luck, break that bank people… break that bank! 

Total fish: 7 Largemouth Bass + 2 Bluegill + 1 catfish + 1 green sunfish total fish = 11

Almost Forgot....

Here is a trip that I forgot to mention. Last Thursday (the 14th) My buddy Luis and I decided to take a quick fishing trip for some crappie. My buddy Charles hooked me up with 5 minnows that he had left over from one of our previous trips and I had always wanted to try out minnows at The bee hive so we did. 

We went out to the bee hive and I hooked up Luis’ bait before mine (note to self, teach luis how to tie knots). He put his minnow on and within a few minutes he had his first crappie on. He lost another one pretty quickly and threw on his third minnow. I hurried so he would waste all of the minnows. I put one minnow on, and had a huge takedown but wasn’t able to hook the fish. 

We also had some worms so I put some on the hook and ended up pulling in a small crappie. When I’m out here I use a slip bobber rig but this time I only used a regular bobber. Since we got to the fishing hole pretty late, the sun was down fairly quickly and I figured we could try for some big catfish. I set one heavier rod out with a catfish setup but had no success on it at all. Meanwhile, I continued with my bobber on the shallow side of the bank even though it was dark. I saw my bobber go down so I reeled in and to my surprise I had a small catfish on the line. After a while we decided to call it a day. 

Total fish: 1 Catfish + 1 Crappie = 2 fish

Nothing But Little Guys

I left the house at about 530 and arrived at the bee hive at 6:00. I figured a couple of hours after work would be enough to get the monkey off my back. I didn’t want to have to buy bait and haul around all of my lures so I only brought  Excalibur, my 6 wt and a few boxes full of flies. Plus lately I have been challenging myself to only take my fly rod and force myself to learn. 

I had not been to the beehive since early spring so I was pretty excited to nail some panfish. The feeder canal looked as shallow as last time I was there but I think this is due to them doing digging upstream last year. I tied on a frog colored panfish popper and went to work. 

I popped that sucker around for a good while but had absolutely no takers. I don’t know if I mentioned this in the past but the beehive named itself because there are tons of bees hanging around in that area. I was excited a while back when I found some foam bee patterns to use here. This was my first time using them and I was utterly disappointed. No takers on the bees at all.

Then I went with a royal humpy in orange but there were no takers on that one either. I tied on a march brown because I figured it looked like a mosquito and that brought my first baby bluegill to hand. Not much of a fish but I’ve caught smaller!

Then came a whole collection of flies from cahills, poppers, wooley buggers, wooley worms, Sarges Crappie flies, and san juan worms before catching a small largemouth bass on a foam hopper pattern. 

I continued my carousel of flies but for whatever reason they weren’t taking what I was giving them. I ended up packing up at about 8:20 and headed home but not before a cool shot with the car and Excalibur. 

Well, I still have a lot of research to do to crack the code on the beehive with the fly. It is a killer spot with the old worm and bobber but with flies, it seems to be a bit harder. Luckily I am up for the challenge. 

Total Fish: 1 bluegill + 1 largemouth bass = 2 fish

Testing the RLS + and other fishing adventures.

Some of you asked for a report about how the RLS+ does on the water so here it is. As I said before this thing casts very smooth.  I took it on two of the three fishing spots I will tell you about on this post. 

1. Last Thursday I took it for a spin at Willow Hill reservoir in Roseville, CA.  It’s a fishing hole that I had never been to but I decided all I was going to take was my fly rod.  Either I caught a fish on my new fly rod or I didn’t catch anything.

I was looking for some bass but also wasn’t opposed to catching some trout (stocked pond) or blue gills. When I arrived, I was surprised to find out the pond was RIGHT BEHIND the high school.  Perhaps if I had a pond behind my high school I would have chosen fishing instead of getting into trouble! Lol anyway I tossed out a bass popper and some tiny panfish and baby bass quickly went to check it out. I got a few strikes but they were too small to swallow my popper.  In the distance I could see a dock and quite a few fishermen on it fishing. A couple of high school kids were screaming about having caught fish so I figured I would inch closer to it. I saw a tree hanging over the pond and since it was a hot day I figured there might be some bass and panfish underneath. Sure enough, there were bass, but they were spawning so I left them alone.  

Finally I made my way to the dock and after a few casts, I hooked into my first bluegill on a Royal humpy. Royal humpy is getting closer to becoming my go to fly for blue gills, they seem to love it! Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of this fish because as soon as I caught it an old man asked me if he could use it for bait. I handed it right over. Soon after that my wife called and I made my way to pick her up. One quick observation, 8 wts are not for catching bluegills! (some of you are saying,” well, duh!”) I knew this but I was able to feel that this rod was designed for bigger fish and I just man handled this little bluegill with no problem at all.

Total = 1 blue gill

2. Went fishing by myself out at the bee hive.  I did not bring my fly rod on this trip even though I probably should have.  I was looking for crappie and bluegills but they don’t seem to be around yet. There were a few bass hanging around. I through a few lures and only a heddon torpedo got a few strikes from some smaller guys. I tossed out one with a nightcrawler on a classic rig but couldn’t get a single bite. The other was a nightcrawler on a simple bobber rig. The catfish pole didn’t get a single bite. The other attracted some small bass. In all I was able to catch three bass which didn’t have much size to them but I certainly cannot complain about getting into some bass action.

Total = 3 Largemouth bass

 

 3.  I took the RLS+ and a regular rod out to Boss Pond. The big difference that we all noticed was that the water was stained this time around. Last time our confidence was higher because the fish were visible. This time around you could hardly see the fish but as the day progressed, we had strikes without solid bites. My spot under the tree produced 2 small bluegills on nightcrawlers that I gave to Ol Pops to use for catfish bait. As for the bass, they were sucking up our baits, including a brown wooley bugger on the RLS but it quickly spit it out. That was the story the rest of the day at Boss Pond. Once again, I at the very least didn’t get skunked.

Total: 2 bluegills

Total Fish 3 bluegills + 3 Largemouth bass = 6 fish