AR quickie 10/4/11

Today I did a little bit of recon on the AR to see if I could get my first ever AR salmon. First stop I thought I'd look just below the fish hatchery with the rest of the crowds. Me and Deni walked down to look, saw nearly 50 anglers on the water counting people on both sides of the river. Salmon jumping everywhere, but I only saw one fish on a stringer. I tried drifting a Corkie for about 10 mins. and then I threw a spinner for another 20 then I was bored out of my mind. I saw one guy hook up and lose his salmon after a 5 min fight. Wasn't there for long but that was it.

After that Deni had to go to school, so not to be lonely and bored I called up Garrett asked if he was free and up for a little bit of fishing. He said he was down so I picked him up and we took off. We decided to go out to the Howe area at one of my old Striper spots so I could try to get a Striper once I got irritated with salmon.

Once we parked and were getting our gear together Garrett saw I had a stinger sitting in the bed of my truck which I was on my way to grab encase we got something, but Garrett told me "Don't bring it, you only get fish when your not prepared," so I said "Ok, whatever you say man." We took off and got on the water around 1800. I had a second rod so I threw a Kwikfish out, figured why not? You never know. As I was setting up Garrett thought he saw a Striper boil so I threw my super spook on to try for a top water bite. I threw it for about 10 mins. and I just wasn't feeling it, so I threw a swimbait on to try that for a while. Garrett and I started to see salmon after salmon roll on the other side of the river about 30 ft too far for us to cast. Don't you love how that works out?

I stuck with the swimbait just to be doing something different then Garrett with his Flying C. Garrett kept with his spinner though. I thought it was weird though he would cast out reel for the first 20ft of line and then crank it back in and cast back out as close to the rolling salmon as he could get. I thought he was just wasting most of his cast, but whatever. Sure enough though he made a cast out started reeling and on his second crank his spinner stopped like a rock, he set the hook, and fish on!!!

I took a few action pics.



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He got the fish in in no time and Garrett landed a nice chrome jack for the day.



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With seeing that I took my swimbait off and threw my spinner on. I tried for one of my own and Garrett tried for his limit but we didn't have anymore hits. Kept seeing fish rolling on the other side of the river though. Think I'll have to go and take the boat or my pontoon out there and get to that other side. Have to go where the fish are. Maybe next time we'll see.

Off the water by 1915. Pretty good for only about an hour on the water. Still need to get my first AR salmon, I'm gonna have to get in gear and get it before the end of the month, because once they start stocking Camanche and Amador I'll hibernating there until Spring. Always good to get out though. Better then working thats for sure.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark