Let's Go to Work...

1st blood

It had been a while since I had fished with Russell so we decided to get together and fish for some bass. Only problem is that I already had plans to fish with Charles so I had to combine friends… always dangerous! I have friends I can easily mix and others I can’t. Charles is easy going but Russell is a little more particular with strangers so I worried. 

nice one

I introduced the two of them and we walked to the pits. Russell was a bit quieter so I feared the worst. We had a good amount of minnows and we started the day with them, just to make sure we wouldn’t get skunked. A minnow under a bobber for each of us killed the skunk and got the day started. After that we went to work. 

last one of the day

This pond is different than most. Bigger lures that you use in other places won’t necessarily work here. Crankbaits, spinner baits, topwater poppers are for the most part ignored. Charles has been here a couple more times than I have so he has already figured out that some smaller swimbait minnows work here. I tried a little of the above mentioned and then I finally went for the green and chrome kastmaster and that’s when the bite turned on. 

Charles' largest

Meanwhile Charles got into the biggest fish of the day and this is what caught Russell’s attention. It brought him over to Charles to start asking questions about what he used and telling stories about bass. I was glad they began to get along. 

I cast out my KM pretty deep and I felt a hard tug. I had it on my crappie rod with 6 lb test which is the same one with which I lost “The great white buffaloes” so I was worried. In fact, later on even Charles would tell me he was hoping for me to land this one because he saw me lose the last couple and it was bad! This fish was a fighter but didn’t feel nearly as large as the GWB. Nonetheless I slid down the hill, continued to reel and within a few moments I brought in a nice 3 lber. 

pot belly on this one

3 lber put up a great fight

All of us continued to catch bass and take pictures. One thing that irked me was that at one point I was going for a long cast and my line snapped, launching my lucky green and chrome Kastmaster into the middle of the pond.  We finished up with a rather nice fall day with at least 35+ bass between the three of us.

 Total: 13 Largemouth Bass

Return of the Great White Buffalo

First Blood

I recently began fishing gravel pits or dredger ponds as some call them. My friend Charles and I have been exploring more of them and through the help of google maps ended up finding a second pond out at “The pits.” We set out to explore it and fish for a couple of hours this past Sunday morning and sure enough there it was. The water is crystal clear in this pond, similar to the other. The water is really low as anywhere in CA but this pond is also not as deep as the original pond at the Pits.

One section of the pond was about 2 -3 feet deep; we started here. Minnows make the trip worthwhile. Every cast close to fish was a takedown and if you play your cards right, also a fish. Nothing too big in this area, biggest was about a pound. Well I was rigged up and ready to go so I caught fish after fish on my panfish set up with a slip bobber rig on 6 lb test. I use 6 lb test because you never know when you will incidentally get into something bigger.  

We hiked out to a flat area where the water was a bit deeper. With only small fish swimming around, Charles hiked to the other side of the pond and I stayed on one bank slaying small fish. At this point I was tired of getting them with minnows so I started using lures. Grubs also worked on them as did my green and silver cast master. 

Gotta do the selfie

Healthy fish in this pond

That’s when luck brought something bigger and more confident swimming along the bank. It moved fearlessly as if patrolling the situation on the bank. I quickly grabbed a minnow, hooked it up and tossed it right in front of his face. Nothing. The fish was a boss! I knew it didn’t get that big by falling for lame tricks like that. It swam away. It would seem my luck had run out. I looked at the general vicinity where it was but it seemed to have disappeared. I stood on top of a mound of dirt to see if I could spot it but I couldn’t. 

I figured it might still be hanging around so I tossed it in a weeded area and then luck brought the mammoth fish right back to me. I saw him swim up to the minnow, inhale it and keep moving. I waited to make sure he ate the minnow down so I waited a second before setting my hook. Then, with my rod tip low I took a hard swing in the opposite direction of the fish, and hooked him hard. At this point he freaked out and took off peeling line. I reeled and he peeled but I was on top of the mound so I slid down right next to the bank making sure to keep the bend in my rod. He peeled and stopped and I prepared myself to lip this bad boy and celebrate. And then I did something stupid that made me kick myself (even as I write this and probably forever. My drag sounded a little loose and the fish seemed all tired so for some reason I tightened the drag up except I didn’t tighten a little bit, I tightened it a lot. I’m used to muscling these big fish in at the end but I usually bass fish with 10 lb test.  So what do you know, the fish makes one last hard run and snaps my 6lb test. 

one of the last of the day

I cussed at the top of my lungs and for at least a minute. I couldn’t even fish after that. I just scanned the water in hopes that he would come back but nothing. My luck was gone for the day. It snapped like the 6 lb test line on my panfish rod. With that we finished up with a good amount of fish and one more sighting of the “Great White Buffalo!” (For those of you who haven’t watched the movie hot tub time machine: the one that got away.)

Total Fish: 13 Largemouth Bass

** This total puts me at over 200 fish this year.

The Skunks Revenge

This year has been the first year have gone out and consistently caught fish instead of just being skunked. Sometimes its just one lucky fish I catch, sometimes it’s a big fish I catch and sometimes I have just had good days.  And occasionally I still have bad days. Here are the tales of two bad days in a row. 

So last tuesday I decided to get some crappie fishing out at my buddy Russell’s secret spot. I took Charles with me and we were ready for some fish. 

We ended up getting there right at sundown because Charles had some errands to run and we had to pick up some minnows. My rods were set up to add minnows and cast and so I did. 

Charles drew first blood with a nice little crappie that measured about 9 inches. I waited but bites were far and few between. My biggest mistake at this place is not having the net right next to me. I did have it at one point but then I moved down a few feet and since it was dark, it was hard to spot. 

It wasn’t until it was dark that that I finally got a take down. The bobber didn’t move or bob, it just disappeared so I knew I had something big on the other end of my line. I set my hook and sure enough, something pulled right back and took off peeling line. I played the fish and told Charles to bring the net. At one point I got him to the top and I saw his massive back and beautiful markings. Sure enough he was a largemouth around 5-6 lbs, nice and fat.  Charles had a difficult time finding the net so I continued to play the fish. When Charles finally got to my side, the fish shot in the opposite direction and back and then it was gone. I was left cussing like a fisherman! I apologized to Charles for my coarse language and when my adrenaline stopped pumping I threw another minnow on the hook and wished I would have caught that fish. What else can a fisherman do but replay the moment in his mind and vow to never lose one like that again. I ended up skunked that day. 

Then the next day with the sour taste of losing a big one, I agreed to go salmon fishing with Sean. Since it has been a full year since I last mentioned Sean, I will say a little about him. Sean is a biologist and works with fish DNA. He is also a true salmon slayer. The guy is on the river every chance he gets during salmon season and regularly gets into some nice fish. He is up to 6 fish so far this season. 

Sean is my salmon guy. He is always down to fish for salmon and is eager to see me get into my first king. Unfortunately this was not the trip. I ended up skunked but my desire to fish is bigger than ever. 

 

So that’s the deal, two days of fishing and two skunks. Tomorrow is another day! 

Total fish: 0

The One that Got Away… At Last!

You know how fishermen always have a story about “the one that got away?” Well up until Yesterday I didn’t. You see, I haven’t caught huge fish but I have caught decent size fish. I had one such encounter while carp fishing but it was a carp so it didn’t count (in my opinion).  I haven’t however caught a fish that put up a huge fight and that I ultimately lost. That is until Yesterday. 

So I fished Collins Lake this tuesday. I had the day off so I figured I would make the hour and twenty minute drive and try my hand at catching some planter rainbows. Word on the street (okay, not the street, just my buddy Russell) was that folks were KILLING the trout out there. He told me you could see hundreds of trout swimming past one specific area. So we made a trip of it and headed out to Collins. When we got there we saw people pulling out trout and imagined an epic day. And it was pretty epic, just not in the way that I had imagined. 

We got out on the water at about 10:30. My set up was a basic slip sinker rig with a ½ oz egg weight, a 2 foot fluorocarbon leader, a size 16 treble hook and some rainbow power bait. Russell Got his rod in the water using power eggs. Within a few minutes he had a fish on! I missed my chance at first fish but it was okay because in my mind we were just getting started. A few minutes later he got into another fish. A bit later another guy came, stood next to me and started fishing and he started getting into fish as well! Picture it: Ten feet to my left there is a guy catching fish, ten feet to my right is another guy catching fish and I am getting skunked!

I was so frustrated that I had to take a break. We had some lunch and a couple beers which helped me get into a better mood. I was ready to fish again and I was also ready to catch; only it didn’t happen. I switched bait, leader length, tactics and I continued being fishless as Russell caught more fish. I finally asked Russell what his set up was and it was a ridiculous sounding set up. The guy didn’t even have a leader; he just sort of rigged up his own monofilament line as the leader and didn’t have an egg weight, but simply used a small tear drop weight held in place by the barrel swivel. Well, I figured I tried my way, why not try his way even though mine seemed better, what with the fluorocarbon leader and egg weight. So I tied up his poor man’s rig and wouldn’t you know it, at 3:05 pm, five minutes after tying this set up, I got my first bite! I missed that one, put on another power egg and tossed it back in and again, I got a bite! I was beside myself! For whatever reason when I used a fluorocarbon leader the fish wanted nothing to do with it and when I used the mono they couldn’t resist! And this sure proved true at about 3:25 when I caught my first trout! 

I got a few more bites and probably could have caught more planters on a regular rod but at around 3:45 I decided I wanted to head down to dry creek and try for some wild trout at dry creek down below the dam. This is where things changed. I tied on a size?? (Mark?)  paralyzer that Mark at Northern California Trout gave me the last time we fished together. On my first dead drift on a riffle, boom! Just a strike but I didn’t land him. Then after about my 10^th cast and a few fruitless strikes, the bite died. So I switched to a black wooley bugger and then a Royal humpy I decided to go back to the paralyzer. I cast twice and on my third cast, I caught a nice little baby trout!

 I had very little time to fish since the sun was going down but I continued to cast and wouldn’t you know it, the bite picked up! A bit later I had another little trout and another and another totaling four small wild rainbows in a matter of about 20 minutes. That would include time to catch the trout, land him, net him, take a picture and toss him back in. Did I mention that I caught each trout, used a net to get them in, didn’t let them touch the ground, wet my hand to handle them and released them all safe and sound?  Yes, I have to pat myself on the back for that ;)

The sun set at around 4:50 but it started getting dark at around 5:20. It was getting harder to see my fly but I continued throwing it. At this point I noticed more trout seemed to be snacking at the riffle. Bites were plenty and I noticed the fish were getting bigger as it got darker.

This is when it happened. At first I thought it was a snag because my line just stayed completely stiff. I pulled line in with my hand and all of a sudden I felt it move! I reeled in and at this point I felt it struggle. When I reached down for my net I felt him take one last forceful charge and SNAP! He broke my 5x 5 lb tippet and swam away with my paralyzer. Now partially it was my fault that this happened, since I was only catching smaller trout, I didn’t think to loosen my drag and it was on all the way tight. 

After it happened I was crushed but at the same time I smiled. I was there to fish and what a way to end the day but by losing what must have been at least a 6 or 7 lb trout! Then I had a second thought, when is the next time I will be out here again, especially since stream fishing is coming to a close? So I put my head lamp on, squinted to see as I tied on another paralyze and threw a few more casts before the bite died and it got to dark for me to see what was going on. 

Perhaps I should have been sad. Perhaps I should have dwelled on my lack of preparation on setting the drag. Perhaps I could have cursed the fact that I didn’t get down there earlier or anything else but instead I dwelled on the positive. I now know that there are BIG fish in that creek, I know how and where to try to catch them and I now have a “one that got away” story to share until next season when I go back there and catch him and his bigger siblings!

Total count: 5 trout. That and an awesome “One that got away” story.