American River 6/28/11

Well I recently got a job title change and have now been working full time. I love working now and the pay check that comes with it, but man does it cut into my fishing time. With my one day off this week I needed to back out and try for Mr. Striper on the AR. With thunderstorms in the forecast I wanted to head out early to fish in some clear skies. I left my house at 0420 hoping to make it to the water at 0500. Not even half way there though my car ended up over heating and I had to pull off at a gas station to let it cool down. I filled up on some water and topped off the radiator. Process took near a half hour before I got back on the road and I thought I was going to miss the bite. I did make it on the water by 0530 though in time for me to still hopefully get something.

I bought a new set up for myself I plan on using next month for salmon season, but its work perfect out here too.



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Shimano Curado 200 E7 on a Shimano Clarus rod 8'6" medium action weighted 8-17lb test line with 12lb Triliene XT low vis green

I feel in love with it after just a few cast. Very smooth and just feels nice.

I get on the water and I see a few swirls out there so I get my spook on and start working the topwater. I saw a few jump here and there, but nothing really looked big today. Not after too long I get a boil on my spook and I've got a fish on =)



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Nothing big, but man its top water and there is nothing else like it. I keep casting, but nothing was really happening after that. Stopped seeing boils after that, so I moved up river to a spot I know thats better for throwing swimbaits for whatever reason. I toss a 5 inch white trophy bait swimbait on a half ounce head, and first cast I get a couple short taps for a swing and a miss. Few minutes later and I get a second shot at it and I stick him this time.



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Right on! I've got my limit of shakers now! Haha I still need a keeper though. They've got to be out there. I keep throwing the swimbait for some more taps and 2 more shakers.



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They just couldn't resist it today. I start seeing the fish jumping again so I put the swimbait down and pick up my spook. After a few cast throwing to jumping fish I see a swirl behind my spook and another shortly after. Fish went for my lure twice and he just couldn't get it. I do two more cast for nothing then I pick my swimbait back up and cast to where I had the boil and I just burned it about 5 inches under the surface, and sure enough half way through my retrieve I got slammed. I fought the fish for a while. Definatly felt like the biggest fish of the day, idk if he was legal or not, but he was bigger then anything I've caught so far today. I get him 5 feet from the bank see his tail flop and right then and there he popped off on me. Probably my one shot at a keeper and I screwed it up. Oh well it happenes.

Its getting later and the sun is up I realized I didn't eat break fest and it was about food time. I look around and I see mother nature has provided me with break fest!!!



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Couple berries for me to munch on while I fish. Always cool to have. The morning went on and the fish stopped biting. 4 Stripers all shakers, 1 on top water and 3 on swimbaits. Not bad for being a half hour late and thinking I was gonna miss the bite. I decided to pack up shop and head over to my girl friends house where I got some real break fest =)



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Man was it good too. I got some food and took a trip to the store to buy some things for a boil. I wanted to get a bunch of crawfish together and have a big boil with some friends. I knew though with the current water level and todays weather it wasn't going to be easy. The task of getting the crawdads is hard enough with the high flows and cold water, but I don't have any friends that are crazy enough to jump in with me and help.

I went anyways though. Took me a while to adjust to the cold water, but after a while I was able to stay down for close to a minute to get myself some crayfish.



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Who needs traps? Goggles and gloves is all you need, and I have fins as well to help me out in the tuff current. I was in the water for about an hour before I couldn't take the cold anymore. Ended up getting close to 40 crawdads to throw in the pot.



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Got some red potatoes, garlic, onion, along with some Johnsonville Brauts and some Ball Park Franks to add to the pot. Called the friends over, had some food and just had a blast hanging out together.



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I wanted to get back out for my keeper striper in the evening, but the rain came in and I didn't feel like dealing with it. I'll be back out for him another day soon hopefully. For now though I caught some fish and just had an all out great day. Can't wait to do it again in some better weather!

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

2 Fishing Days Here and There.

I have had bass fever like crazy the past few days and have been wanting to get out. Also tired of slow shad fishing I called Garrett and we decided to take the pontoon out to the port to look for some bass. Sunday we went out and got on the water around 1100. When we got there I noticed man oh man was it a low tide. I don't know where to find tide charts for the port but I would have to guess it was a -2ft tide atleast. Lowest I've ever seen it and not my personal preference for bass fishing. Exposed weed mats lined the rock bank we planned on throwing crank baits along so we decided to troll some swimbaits over to our other spot we wanted to fish. I really didn't plan on getting any stripers with the weather being as hot as it was and I remember my trolling swimbait method dieing off in march, but why waste time out of the water?

Half way over to where we wanted to get to I was talking to Garrett and at the corner of my eye I saw my rod go off and I was like holy $%!# I got a bite! I grabbed my rod and reeled in a small little shaker that decided he had enough balls to hit a swimbait over half his size.



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Thought to myself hot damn days hasn't even really started for us and I already got the skunk off with a species I didn't even plan on catching. Threw the swimbait back out and I managed to get one more 2 mins later about an inch bigger then the first. After that Garrett wanted one, so we ran back through the area once more for 1 bite that Garrett missed and that was it, so enough of that lets get to what we came here for.

We get to our cove that we want to fish and there are weed mats everywhere, so what to do? Frogging time baby. Garrett throws a frog on and I decided to put on a fluke. We threw into, around, and all over mats. I saw a patch of weeds that sat about 6 inches below the surface and I casted my fluke to it and kind of walked the dog with it about 2 inches below the surface trying to call a bass out. Sure enough I got one to come out of it.



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Not a legal sized on but I'll take it. We hit some more matts and I get one to actually slam my fluke on the top of the mat about the same size as my first. Garrett puts down the frog after a while and he decides that its been to long since he had caught a bluegill, so he pulls out a box of night crawlers and before I know it I see a bobber fly out onto the water, and sure enough as soon as it hits the water it goes down.



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Nice one too. Garrett managed to get 5 nice bluegills, all bigger then his hand. I'm going to remember that next time I want to have a panfish fry. We move on to more mats and rocks for a small fish here and a small fish there. I ended up getting 4 bass all undersized, 1 on a senko the rest on my fluke. Garrett did get one small 4 inch bass with a night crawler. We couldn't find enough small fish to keep us entertained or any nice sized fish to brag about so we decided to get off the water and go check out the American. Trolling on the way back Garrett did manage to get about a 15 inch Striper slow trolling our swimbaits. Man I love that method. Pretty sure no one else or very few people do that. Feels kind of like my own thing anyways.

We Debate on Harrington for Shad or Howe for stripers. I personally have had the worst luck so far this shad season so I want to continue my bass search and get on some stripers so Howe it was. We got there about 1900 and we walk along looking for a good looking spot. We find one and fish it for a while. No more then 5 mins after getting there we see a big splash we know is a striper. Its settled were staying here. Garrett tosses a swimbait while I try my pencil popper.

Right away garrett thinks he is getting taps. Not sure if they were bites though, he said it felt like bottom. After feeling it 3 cast in a row he finally decides to set the hook on it and what do you know? he is hooked up. Fights it for a bit and lands a small shaker.



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5 mins later I see him swing for the fences and his rod is doubled over. I get excited and Garrett says its a good one. Then . . . fish off. Garrett beats him self up over what he did wrong and why did it come off. I then realize he grabbed that swimbait out of my box and I told him to check the barb. Sure enough because I fish the upper section of the AR on a regular basis most of my gear is barbless, and sure enough his hook was barbless, so thats what garrett blames losing that fish on.

2020 rolls around and stripers start boiling everywhere. I after seeing Garrett land and lose one I'm throwing a swimbait, but with them boiling like this you know I have to get a top water plug out there. I get my pencil popper out there and as soon as they started jumping they stopped. I switch back to the swimbait and they start jumping again!!! I was thinking what the hell? I throw the pencil popper back out there again and sure enough they stop. Now I am thinking, my plug is scaring them. My pencil popper is big it splashes a lot and it has rattles in it. Its probably scaring them, wish I had a spook, but I don't so I retired topwater for the night.

I stopped and the fish started jumping again. We fished till 2100 with Garrett actually hooking up 1 more time for about 3 seconds and losing the fish again. Still blaming the barbless hook. I couldn't even buy a bite, but with action like that you know I'm going back out there.

Today, Monday. Same spot on the AR on the water by 1730. I toss out a sardine and look for some squawfish for bait. I managed to get a few shaker bites on the sardines, but no hook ups and I couldn't find any squawfish to throw out. 1900 rolls around and I hear a lot of splashing going on up river from me where Garrett is at. I hear some guys yelling so I walk up to find out what was going on. I walk over to find Garrett holding his spook with the saddest look on his face. I walk down and he was fishing with our friend Daryl and they both told me Garrett had a 10+lb striper on his spook, fought it all the way to the bank and the split rings holding his hooks to his lure failed and the fish was gone. BUMMER!!!

I fish with them and you bet I got a spook today. First cast I have a nice blow up, but like a class A amateur I set the hook too early and miss the fish. Thats ok thought because 10 mins later the fish gods gave me a second chance! I get the blow up again, feel the weight and BAM FISH ON! Nothing big, but I land my first topwater fish of the year, and my first striper on a spook.



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I'm sorry about the poor quality, Garrett doesn't know how to take a proper picture.

I guessed the fish to be maybe 16 inches. We fish till 2100 again I get another fish to blow up on my spook 3 times and the fish missed it each time (hate it when that happens, absolutely nothing you can do about it). Garrett gets one to follow his spook and Daryl gets one nice blow up, but the fish missed. Also on a spook. Walking the dog right now is the way to go! I did try ripping a swimbait just a couple inches under the surface for one quick tap. Couldn't get it to connect though.

Its Striper time baby!!! Hopefully I can get a keeper soon.

Till Next Time Guys!
I know I'll be out again soon
Mark

Back From Oregon and Back to Shad

My trip to Oregon was very cool but unfortunately due to weather I couldn't really get any fishing in. With the need to do some kind of fishing though and the strong craving for a fish fry my buddy Ethan and I went off to Herbert's pond in Canyonville to see what we could get into. A buddy of Ethan's said he caught a few yellow perch out of there a few days ago so that was our main target fish. I tried for bass first with some spooks and a senko, but I didn't get any love on that. We ended up just using some small size 8 bait hooks tipped with about a cenimeter long piece of power worm and just went to town on the bluegills. We did a lap around the pond catching dozens of bluegills keeping any that were handsize or at least big enough to get some meat off of. We did a lap around the pond I ended up getting two Large Mouth bass pushing 3 inches, Woo!!! I'd like to see you do that, haha. After a lap around the pond Ethan did manage to get a small 4 inch yellow perch though.



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Ethan won the day with catching the one and only target species. It was also Ethan's first yellow perch which was cool. We eneded up with 8 keeper hand sized bluegills to take home out of easily 100+ fish we caught between the two of us over 3 hours of fishing. Made a nice little snack for us when we got back home.

I got back home Wednesday evening and Thursday morning I planned on just sleeping in getting a feel for being home again. My dad calls me at 0900 yelling at me, "Mark lets get some fishing in this afternoon before you brothers graduation!!!" So I roll out of bed and we take off for Rossmoor. We get there at 1200 and fishing as expected mid afternoon was indeed slow. I get my first bite though around 1245 and the fish broke me off 10ft from the bank. Around 1500 I got into a nice school and I had 4 hook ups in 4 cast.



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I love ultralight fishing =)



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All small males today.

I ended with 5 and my dad only had 1 or 2. We had to leave around 1630 to go and watch my little brother's and my step brother's Highschool Graduation.



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Their Graduation had fireworks and everything man it was a cool event.

Anyways the next day My dad and I went back out to Rossmoor to get into some more shad. We picked up Ethan and Daryl on the way and got the whole gang out on the water. I heard the flows came back up today from 5000 cfs yesterday to close to 8000 cfs today. I was hoping it wouldn't effect fishing too much so I could get Ethan on his first shad.

We show up around 1600 and Daryl hooks up right away good sign, but nothing happened for sometime after that. We all experimented with different weighted split shots, distances, drifts, and everything we could think of to get in the right zone and get fish biting. Daryl finally finds the right drift and starts consistantly getting some fish. After a while Ethan hooks up with his First American shad.



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Nicer female.

We were all just talking/joking around with each other having a good time, after a while though I realize it was 1800, 2 hours have gone by and I haven't even caught a fish, WTF is going on??? I double check what Daryl is doing, I look at Ethan's set up, see how far they are casting . . . . yup I'm doing the exact same thing they are, so I should be getting them too. Then daryl gets one, and another, Ethan hooks up, I can hear my dad hook one down the way, Daryl gets another, Ethan gets another, and I am still fishless =(

I admit I am a slave to new technology and my head is usually always buried in my phone and often while shad fishing I am texting during drifts and I just have a finger on the line feeling for a bite. Daryl made the comment to me I wasn't texting today, probably why I wasn't catching fish, so I pulled out my phone and messed around on that for a while, but still nothing. 1845 came around I was about to say screw it and just toss for stripers the rest of the night and then I finally get my first fish. I didn't get skunked I was happy. I did miss a few other bites, but tonight just wasn't my night.

Another fellow fisherman, Dave, walked down who knew Daryl, Daryl was out last night after I had left for my brother's grad and he saw him trying a live shad for a striper, but Daryl had to leave early in the night so he never saw if he got one or not. We asked him how he did and he just looked at us with the biggest grin on his face. He pulled out his phone and showed us all a picture of a massive 35lb 42 inch striper he caught out there the night before. I wish I could post that picture for you guys.

With seeing that I just said Shad didn't love me today, I put down my UL rod and grabbed my swim bait rod. I casted my regular white swimbait with a 1/2 ounce head on it for the rest of the night. Fished until 2030 for nothing. I heard one striper boil on something. Dave had decent hit on a live shad, but it didn't take it. Daryl ended with 12, Ethan and my dad both got 6, and I had 1. The flows didn't effect anyone else, but man it sure messed with me. Oh well always great to get out on the water and spend time with friends.

Till next time
Mark