Bodega Bay Camping Trip 1/06-1/08

Well way back in September myself and a bunch of friends from the Sac State Marching Band wanted to go out and do a camping trip to Bodega during winter break and go out for crab and rockfish. Then crab season closed down, but we were still up for the trip. Then just before the trip the weather looked absolutely horrid during the time we were supposed to be there. A lot of people dropped out scared of the weather and I didn't blame them, but several people still wanted to go and brave the elements. I was hosting the event so I said screw it if people still want to go I'll go and rough it out with them. Wednesday we left sac around 1230 and here at home and during the entire trip it was absolutely dumping buckets. I was dredging the thought of setting up a tent in the rain. I tried not to let it bother me too much and just prayed that mother nature would let up on us just a little bit. When we got on hwy 1 only about 5 miles from Doran the road was flooded and we had to detour through the sticks to get to camp, but made it without any issues.

Got to camp and the weather was absolutely beautiful. A little cloudy with no wind what so ever. 

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Got camp set up and had just a little bit of time to hit the rocks before the sun set on us. 3 of us hit the rocks only for about 45 mins and managed 3 rockfish before the tide came in on us and the sun set. We went back to camp made dinner and felt so blessed to have the sun shinning on us for what we all feared was going to be a miserable rainy day.

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It was not avoidable though, the rain came down just after 2200 and when it rained it poured. It poured from then until atleast 0500 in the morning, but we all piled into a tent and stayed warm and dry all night. 

Next day we hung around camp having fun playing bocci ball all day then around 1230 I knew the tide had gone out so we all headed over to the rocks to put the hurt on some rockfish. I rigged everyone up with a texas rigged white gizit. 1/4 ounce of weight on top and a little bit of sardine scent usually does the trick. I didn't fish much for the first hour, I mostly played the part of guide. Everyone else though was either getting hits or ripping lips.

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Haley was the first to hook up and she destroyed these guys while we were out here.

Almost everyone I had with me had never caught a rockfish before and a few had even never fished before so I had a great time sharing this experience with everyone. 

Jerry with his first rockfish.

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Emily with her first ever fish.

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Daniel with his first of the day

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We spent a few hours pulling fish out of the rocks and just having a great time in the beautiful weather that was never in the forecast for us.

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I did get to fish once everyone learned how to unhook their own fish and get out of snags. 

A double I had with Emily

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A little over an hour into our day Haley had her limit and she asked me about this poke poling thing I kept talking about. I set her up with some squid then she went and pulled eels until the rest of the day.

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After a while our rockfish bite kind of died so Elijah and I followed suit on the eels.

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Daniel even got a rare catch of a short cabby while we were out here.

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We didn't measure it, but it was maybe an inch or two short.

We stayed until it got dark, most of us had switched to going for eels at that point since we had a full bucket full of rockfish. Right when the sun hit to horizon though the rockfish bite went WFO. Nothing bigger then 6 inches was caught but we were getting fish on the gizits every single cast. We had a ball doing some C&R with the small guys until it got two dark to see. After that it was time to go back and I went and got all the fished cleaned up and ready for a fish fry.

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Had a great dinner with friends that evening. Made fish fans out of people who don't normally like fish. I always tell them it's different when it's fresh, and probably ruined any store bought fish for the rest of them. Rain came back in around 2300 and it stayed until about 0300. Woke up Friday morning to another beautiful day on the coast. Took our time packing up, then we stopped the the birds cafe for lunch in town and made our way home. 

We had a fantastic time in Bodega even with crab season being closed. The weather held out for us and we were able to have some fun in the sun. Hopefully next year we'll be able to go for some dinghies. Oh btw I asked at the gate and they told me it was safe to eat clams and mussels. I had a few the first night and didn't get sick so I picked and pulled probably 4 lbs worth of them and I haven't gotten sick from them. That's a plus I guess.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

New Year Sturgeon

Well school is over and I've finally found time to get back to fishing again. I've been focusing on sturgeon mostly. I enjoy the thought of catching something bigger then me and it's a fish I've been dieing to figure out and get better at chasing. Last Saturday after Christmas I launched out of Sherman with a couple of friends hoping to hook into a few. We started out at the power lines but the wind was blowing so strong I couldn't get the anchor to stick so we made the run down to broad slough to try and find shelter from the wind. Few an area holding a few fish so we set the pick in 45ft of water and soaked the bait. I had roe and eel out and I have my friend Alan and Elijah some shad so they could stay entertained with the striper bites. 

Elijah with his first ever striper
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Throughout the day they were getting some fairly consistent bites and they each pulled in a keeper and a shaker. 

And Alan with his.

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Nothing huge but it's enough for some taco's at home. I got a few bites on roe, throughout the day, but I wasn't able to connect on em.

We moved out to Chain at the end of the day after the winds calmed down to hope for better luck there. I dropped anchor in a 50ft hole with fish all over it. We fished it for the last hour of light in the day and saw two breachers, but no bites. Called it at sunset. No sturgeon, but we still got to pop two cherries with their first stripers ever which was cool. 

In with the new year my friend Jimmy told me he has the weekend off and asked if I wanted to go fishing. Hell yea, I told him to meet me and my place at 0600 and we took off for the Mothball fleet. 01/02/16 the wind didn't seem nearly as bad as the week before so I wanted to check out the fleet and try our luck there. Dropped lines in about 33ft of water around 0830. Jimmy had one small 6ft rod he was using that I told him looked like it would be a fun fight when a sturgeon hits it. He told me it was stout and could handle it though so he would be fine. Sure enough that's the rod that gets the first hit of the day. Jimmy slams into it and is into our first fish of the day. 

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That fish had Jimmy running all around the boat doing the dance, but it came up and man we were excited to see he had a great looking upper slot sized fish. Got the net around it and brought her in the boat. Tapped it out and the damn fish was 61 inches long. Just barely too long. Jimmy was heart broken, but we've only been out here for an hour the day was still young. Got a quick picture and back she went. 

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No bites for a while for us after that then the tide went slack on us. We pulled anchor and I motored all around the area learning the contours, drop offs, and looking to see where the fish were hanging out at. After marking the area for close to an hour the tide had turned and we dropped our lines back in in about 18ft of water. Not too long after setting the lines of of my rods goes off and I stick my first one of the day. 

A small shaker to get the blood pumping.

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Maybe 15 minutes after that my other rod goes off and I stick a nicer one. Fought the fish all the way to the boat, I saw my top shot come out of the water so I backed up and told Jimmy to get in front of me with the net and be ready to get my fish. Sure enough once I backed up the fish got its second wind and ran off of me again. We straight under the boat and I couldn't get my rod down in time, SNAP!, fish sawed me off on the prop. Damnit, rookie mistake probably costed me a keeper. Nothing I can do now though. Rods back in and another 10 minutes go by again and my rod takes a dip. Slam into it and I'm on again. Taking my time on this one we got it in the boat, but it was just an inch too short.

39 Inches

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Same day we've boated a 61 and a 39 inch fish. What are the chances?

We stayed on a pretty consistent bite for a little over an hour doing good hooking into the fish. After I got mine in Jimmy got into the action with this 37 incher.

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I told Jimmy we had to be due for a slot fish here soon then sure enough he sticks another one. We get her in the boat and it tapes out at 51! Yea baby.

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Bag it and tag it baby. Jimmy has caught his first sturgeon today has his first keeper and of course has caught the biggest fish of his life today. All we need is a keeper for me and we'll be done. I had a few more bites, but wasn't able to connect on anymore. We stuck it out until about 1630 then called it a day. We have brought 5 sturgeon to the boat and lost another one. By far my great days I've ever had chasing the dinosaurs before. We had an absolute blast and if this day is any indication on how 2016 is going to be for us it's going to be a bright year. 

Till next time guys
Mark

Yellowstone on The Fly

First of I will say I have seriously been lacking on writing my reports so let me post a few up to try and make up for it. Better late then never.

Deni's family invited me with them on a vacation out to Yellowstone National Park and that was a trip I couldn't turn down. The drive was a long one since we took the long way around. Spent a day driving up to Oregon when we spent the next day at the Portland Aquarium. Then we went to Mt Rainer, drove to Boise ID to see a family

friend, then 4 days after leaving Sacramento we arrived at our time share in West Yellowstone. The family came here to see the sights and take in the beauty of this magical place and I came along for the ride with my fly rod in the back with the intention to take the advantage of any fishing opportunities I could while I was there. Deni's family was really considerate and gave me the chance to take a vehicle and go and explore the streams by myself.

This place is gorgeous and it is incredible to drive anywhere and have countless streams all to yourself to pursue the passion of the sport of fishing.

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I spent my first day drifting dry flies along the Gibbon River. immediately saw a lot of surface activity in the river and the second I got a dry fly in there they were crushing it.

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There were a lot of little brook trout here with a couple of small rainbows mixed in.

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There wasn't anything big here, but getting fish constantly on dry flies was a load of fun! Fished here for a couple of hours catching a couple dozen fish before the evening was over.

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The area also had plenty of sights to see which sure reminded you that you were in bear/wolf country.

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I ended my day after seeing a bison come down to the river 50 yards away from me to get a drink. I have no care to get too close to one of those things.

Next couple of days I spent my fishing time on the Firehole River.

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Threw dry flies around the area here and found biting fish that were big enough to put up a half decent fight on the sissy stick.

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I also found a lot more brown trout in this area with a few bows as well.

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I caught all of my fish on dry flies. It didn't seem to matter what color or pattern, I tried several different styles. I just worked every bit of water that I could and moved a lot. Pretty much every good looking drift I would find held fish. Often I would be able to catch one or two then the rest would catch on to my presence and I would just move on to the next hole covering a lot of water each day I went out.

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It had been quite some time since I've really dedicated myself to using the fly rod, but of course most of the rivers here fly fishing is required. The are of the cast and the amount of finesse required for it was a very peaceful and humbling experience for me. If your drift wasn't perfect or your execution was sloppy the fish would have no part of it and you would often have to completely give up on the hole and try again later. Plus being able to fish and just be in such a beautiful place was just absolutely mind blowing.

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It was important though to always keep an eye over your shoulder because of the amount of wildlife out here that could be a serious threat to you out here.

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Just encase you didn't know, Bison are massive.

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I did see a mama bear with her cubs, but I never saw any wolfs.

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Seeing them and stuff like this makes you realize who's house your really in.

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They also stress a lot about hot spings here too. They pop up a lot in particular areas. Some are marked and some are not.

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As inviting as they look I was told it was ill advised to jump in one and use it as a hot tub haha.

Last day I spent my time along the fire hole river since that's where I had my best luck and I hit a few spots on the Madison River since it was on my way out of the park. I got my biggest fish of there trip here at my last spot. A beautiful 12 inch brown that would not cooperate with me for a simple picture.

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I didn't want to keep it out of the water too long so this was the best picture I was able to get before releasing it.

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I had a great time in the park. Felt good to get some practice on the sissy stick and get back into the trout fishery. I feel like its been a while since I've done any serious trout fishing. Beautiful place to visit, I didn't take a lot of pictures of all of the tourist sights just because that's not what really excites me about the place. I enjoyed way more walking miles of river banks and being 1 on 1 with the place and the fish. I'll have to come out to this place again maybe in the fall and see how different it looks in a different season.

Till Next Time
Mark

Amador Night Trip 4/18/15

Had the urge to go and give Amador a shot. I don't think I've been out to Amador for a night run in almost 2 years now, I'm way over due. Ethan came along plus my

friend Dana, and Deni. Saturday night we were hoping that the dock wasn't crowded. I think the whole reason Ethan and I stopped going was because it got too busy and when there are too many people running around on the dock it makes too much noise and kills the bite. We show up to the lake at 2300 and see over 30 people fishing on the dock. Damn, I haven't heard anyone talking about it for a long time I was hoping people forgot about it, but I guess not.

We started off of the damn just to get away from the crowds hoping that we would be able to pick up a few fish here. We tried powerbait and glow jigs here for about an hour for nothing. After a while we noticed a few people leaving the dock so we grabbed all the gear and made our way over. Got out on the dock and there are probably still 25 people on the dock, including several children, ages roughly 4-10. I love seeing parents bring their kids fishing, but isn't it past their bed time? With so many people moving around the dock and all of the kids running in circles around the dock things weren't looking good. We stuck it out though hoping that the kids would go to bed soon and we could get some quiet out here. 0200 a decent amount of people leave and one guy came over and gave us some night crawlers that he had left over and hadn't used. Ethan puts one on and no more then 5 mins later he finally gets our first fish of the night.

2 mins later his powerbait rod goes off and now we got two in the box. A minute after that I lose one on a glow jig and while that was going on I had one taking off with my powerbait rod and I some how managed to miss that one too. Nice little flurry of action and great to finally get a few fish in the box after being out here for 3 hours now. After that we were able to get into a few more small flurries of bites every 30-45 mins. We ended up missing most of them. The fish were just biting super light and weren't really committing to there hits. I was able to stick two on the radical glow tubes, Deni got one on powerbait and we all missed a few hits each. Called it a night around 0330 with 5 in the box.

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Not the greatest night, but with the conditions we faced I thought we did pretty good. The whole time we were there on the dock I only saw 3 other people get bites, and by bites I mean there were only 3 bites at all that didn't come from our group. Ethan brought along a submersable light that brought the shad school right to us which I think helped us out a lot. The fish I did end up stick on my jig I had maybe just 4 ft below the light, with the light being maybe 2 ft below the surface. Will have to make the trip out again sometime soon on a week day and see if its any better.

Till Next Time
Mark

Morning With Pops 4/1/15

My dad recently came back from spending 3 months in Louisiana and he has been absolutely dying to get back to fishing. First opportunity was yesterday morning. We dropped the boat in the water at Wimpy's around 0600 and made our way down river hoping for some top water action. First stop it was still dark out, not sure if it was too dark for fish to bite or not, but we'll see. Sent out my first

cast getting my wood wet. After the 4th twitch I thought I heard a small spalsh . . . . . tried finding my plug out there in the darkness and I saw a huge wake where my lure was and then it hit me. Holy crap I got a fish following me. Heard and saw the second splash on my plug and then KABOOM!!! the water exploded and I slam that hook into the first fish of the day. Fish put up a great fight pulling drag and everything. My dad got the net around her and we put a solid DD fish on the boat on the first cast.

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A great looking and fat 31 inch fish. I know its bad luck to catch a fish on your first cast, but the day could end here for all I care it would be a great one. Kept plugging down the shore line for not much more attention.

One thing that was very noticeable was it was ridiculously cold compared to what it has been recently. Towards the end of our first drift I get one more hit on my plug and that sends my plug flying through the air. The second it lands back down the fish takes it down and I slam into a good schoolie. Got him in and I was able to Katch and nice 4lber for the box.

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As I was fighting the fish I saw the Intimidator boat fly by us. I tried holding my rod down to make it less obvious that I was fighting a fish, but I saw him glaring right at me and he knew. Didn't really want the guides to know I'm catching fish up here, but there was no avoiding it at that point.

Kept working out way down river looking for more top water action. It never came around though. After we switched to throwing the jerkbaits we were able to stick a couple of bass here and there.

Made our way all the way out to the SJ looking for stripers. After a few hours of searching for the first time this entire season we actually find a school of active fish. Nothing big, but were sticking shakers and small schoolies on back to back cast.

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Just as the excitement started with about 4 fish to the boat a bass boat come by and flies by right inbetween us and the shore going right over the top of our school and ending the party. WTF!!! . . . . . . . . oh well nothing we can do about it now. Moved on with our search and did manage to stick a few more shaker stripers with some bass inbetween. Ran back up trying a few points on the way back and did a little bit of trolling from spot to spot, but no more action came around for us. Got off of the water around 1300 and called it a good day. We'll be back out this evening trying for more. My dad is thinking of nothing else besides fishing so you will probably be seeing a lot of reports from me in the near future.

Till Then
Mark

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