I'm Back!

I have been away for a long time now. My last post was back in July and back then my fish count was at about 200.... Since then I have caught a LOT of fish, which would probably put me at over 300 for the year. And perhaps one of these days I will count them... but not today. I'm finished counting fish now. That in no way means I'm finished fishing though! In fact, it''s like Doc Holiday said in Tombstone, "I'm in my prime!"

Instead of trying to catch up with my posts, I figured I would post some of the highlights of the past few months.

Minden Success

Back in late July I got together with Russell and we went cat/ carp fishing. he happened to get into a great looking cat and I got into some very hefty carp! ended up having a blast with the buddy russ!

Burney Falls Camping

Back in August my family and I went Camping up at Burney Falls. The Falls themselves were breath-taking and that is an understatement! It it the type of thing you have to experience yourself. It was a 2.5 hour trip but it was WELL worth it. I of course went fishing with ol pops. Didn't get anything on the fly but did end up getting what I believe is my first brook trout on a kastmaster!

Brook trout?

My First King Salmon! 

It finally happened! After a few years chasing the king, I caught her when I least expected! I will dedicate an entire post with full size pictures to this but just thought I would post the update and the teaser pic below!

The First Annual End of the summer fish fry!

 Last year I began collecting fish for an end of summer fish fry but most of it ended up getting frost bite.

This year I collected some catfish, bass and crappie and at the end of the summer I threw a fish fry. I invited some of my best friends over, busted out some delicious craft beer including my last case of Sierra Nevadas summerfest of the season, and had a great time. I was worried that I wouldn't have enough fish for the fry and the only thing that took away that worry was catching the Salmon a few days before. And wouldn't you know it, we not only had enough, but waay too much fish! Everyone ate until they were full and still took fried fish and grilled salmon home! Nothing quite like spending a summer fishing hard and bringing it home to feed the tribe! Looking forward to The 2nd Annual End of Summer Fish Fry which promises to be bigger and better!

Aside from those events I continued to fish! I have been practicing a lot on the fly rod and the bait caster as well. Most of my trips I only take those two rods. Its finally beginning to feel like fall down in the valley and the fishing is about to peak before it slows down and head to the hills for some trout action. Get ready Mark, I'm coming soon! 

Well that's it for me now. Hope all of you are doing well and it is good to be back. 

Another Bulk Report!

Once Again, in order to catch up, I will be doing this in bulk.

5/16/15 – Ol’ Pops finally picked up his license so we took our river rods out to the Sac. A year ago I was slaying them in this exact spot but this year it was considerably slower. Only two came to hand. One of them being 15 in. or so. My dad ended up catching a shaker as well.

Total: 2 Striper

5/19/15 – We ended up going to check the pits to see how the fishing was. The water was indeed lower and I was able to land my first bass this year out of the pits. Although he was a little guy, he was proof that soon enough the spot will be ready for the crazy action we were having last year.

Afterwards we went to Legendary pond and had another legendary day. We used spinning and fly rods to yank a good number of bass out of there. In addition, Jeremy (along with some fine coaching from yours truly) was able to get into his first bass on the fly! I was pretty proud!

Total: 16 Largemouth Bass

5/25/15 – Bored with the same spot and curious about what else was at Legendary pond, we decided to access another side of Legendary pond. So after a good walk down some hills we went to work on the south bank of Legendary pond. It turned out to be even more legendary that the opther side. Watermelon and Chartreuse worms did the trick with the spinning rod and as it got darker, they weren’t touching anything but purple and white wooley buggers! Needless to say I got some nice ones on the fly!In addition, here is a picture of one bass that I caught which was either deformed or something took a big bite out of him at a younger age!

Total: 27 Largemouth Bass

5/29/15 – I didn’t end up making it out to Ditch pond in March/April when the fishing is best but I made it out on this day and brought moises along. We have caught bass there before and Moises is only into bass fishing. He managed to get into a couple. Meanwhile nothing was biting on my minnows and that was a pity. In fact, most of them ended up dying. I did get into a small bass and as the night wore on I tossed a minnow over to a rocky bank and finally got into a nice size crappie. Bites were scarce after that.

Total: 1 Crappie + 1 Largemouth Bass = 2 Fish

6/2/15 – We hadn’t been to walter pond in a while so we paid it a visit. The moss is getting pretty thick on top in our regular spot so we decided to walk around the pond and explore some different areas. I did manage to hook up with a couple bigger bass that I couldn’t drag across the mats so they got away. Another spot had less mosss so I went to work there. Once again, purple wooley buggers got the job done and I was able to get into 4 bass.

Total: 4 Largemouth Bass

 With this report I am all caught up but I have one trip from this weekend that I will report on soon and it was a fun one! 

Total Fish:  2 Striper + 1 Crappie + 48 Largemouth Bass = 51 Fish!

Another Crappie Day

With nobody agreeing to fish Last Wednesday, I set off on the journey to the beehive alone. I figured this left me more space to cast and that was okay with me. 

 

I arrived at around 5 and went to work with a worm and bobber for gills. I quickly caught a small bass just to kill the skunk. Plus I love how hard the small bass hit the worms out there. The next fish was a bluegill which I quickly hooked up on my heavier rod with a bottom feeding rig hoping for some large cats or big bass. The last time I was here the bass were hungry and feeding nearby. 

I tossed out a few lures including a popper, a torpedo, and a crawdad ratl trap with no takers at all. After a while I tied my bobber back on with a tiny treble and got a few more gills. Soon thereafter I tied on a larger hook because I was after some bigger bass or bigger crappie. 

Even though we were supposed to have a full moon, the fish didn’t seem to be biting on the main slough. I knew that come “Crunch time,” (the hour-hour and a ½ while the sun sets) the fish would start hitting. 

When crunch time came I set my rod up with a slip-bobber rig and a couple of nightcrawlers. If the night was as it was a couple of weeks ago I would be able to get into some largemouth and I wanted to be ready for them. I also put a fresh bluegill on my other rod and hoped for the best. It started getting darker and the bite wasn’t really picking up. I switched depths with the slip bobber rig but the bite was slow. I eventually picked up a couple of nice size crappies that I ended up keeping for the fish fry. 

I usually know when its getting too late because the panfish and bass bite turns off and the catfish start biting. And that’s usually smaller cats, nothing worth mentioning. After the second cat I decided to pack it up and head home. 

Total Fish: 2 Catfish + 3 Crappie + 2 Largemouth bass + 6 Bluegill = 13 fish 

** These 9 panfish put me OVER my goal of 70 Panfish for the year! Time to shoot for 100!

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

Updates from the Bank!

-I haven’t been fly fishing in a bit. Lately I have been focusing more on striper fishing with ol Pops but I am really jonesing for a fish on the fly. Aside from my trips with ol Pops I haven’t even been fishing much at all. I have been getting off of work, working out, watching a bit of tv before I go to sleep and repeat. I haven’t gotten to try my hand much at some bigger bass on the fly with my 8 Wt. 

"helmet" buggers

regular beaded bugger

-I haven’t even been back to Putah to try for some bass. As you may recall I found success at Putah with my largemouth on a fly goal but couldn’t get into anything too big and ended up losing my beaded black wooley buggers. I ended up buying some new ones and I realized they weren’t the same as the ones I had success with. In fact, these beaded heads were actual beads as opposed to the “helmet”  beads with which I had success.  I don’t know if there is any difference or if those “helmet” buggers have an actual name but I decided to go on a hunt for the helmet buggers and after striking out at a couple of places, finally realized that I must have purchased them at Sportsmans warehouse in Rocklin. I went out there yesterday and I was right so I ended up buying enough to hold me down for a while. I guess I’ll have to field test both the bead and the helmets to see the difference. 

- I have heard elsewhere that a lot of people use circle hooks for catfishing so I bought some. So I took them on a river fishing trip and found success with circle hooks while striper fishing. These hooks are smaller but I decided to look for larger circle hooks. While at Sportsmans warehouse I also found some size 5 circle hooks so I’m excited to try them out on the stripers.

-As for 2047, I have heard legend of some big bass in there and I plan on going out there with pops and probably Rigo to give it a try. Like I said before we have been fishing there for at least 20 years and never even seen a bass or caught one by accident so if I happen to catch one it will definitely be a milestone. 

-I also have yet to visit the bee hive and butte pond lately which means my Largemouth bass and crappie count hasn’t even begun yet. I purchased some honey bee and yellow jacket looking flies specifically to see if the largemouths will grub them down. I also really want to see if the Sarges crappie fly will slay the crappie at this hole. 

-If I don’t completely break down and head out to putah tonight, my next fishing adventures will be this weekend and then next Wednesday I will be heading out to fish with “Magic Mark” from Northern California Trout (haha you like the new nickname, buddy?).