Busy Day @ Amador 2/11/12

A friend of a friend Ray called me telling me that he is working on his senior project and he some how managed to get fishing as his subject for his senior project. Smart guy, he told me though for his project he needed an outside mentor and he called me for that. I'm honored, I get to do some teaching and just do some fishing. Finally we had a free day together so we can finally go out. Figured right now our best bet would be Amador so off we went. Didn't really want to fight with the crowds, but until Pardee opens next week this is what we got.

We show up around 0900 and the dam is packed and I can already see 20 plus boats on the water, here we go. We were just banking it today, so we found a spot on the dam between the crowds and began our day. I look around and talked to some people. One guy told me he had been counting, he was there since 7 and he had only seen 3 fish caught so far. Not good news for the fishing, but we'll try to make something out of it yet. I stood back up on the dam tossing my usual crappie jigs at cruisers and Ray started off with a kastmaster. I actually saw a lot of cruisers today. There were several schools of 20 or 30 fish that constantly swam past me and one massive school of 100+ fish. All in casting distance, but I would get the jig to pass right by their faces and I would barely even get one to glance at it. I don't know if was the over cast weather or what, but seemed like all of the fish had lockjaw today.

After a few hours I finally see someone hook up and its Ray on his Kastmaster!



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Right on man first fish of the day.



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After so many fish not even glancing at my jig I thought it was time for change. I went to try a few different colors for not much more luck. I ended up tossing one of my flies that I tie with plenty of weight on it to cast from my UL rod. I chose a black leech to try which is becoming my personal favorite fly now. After trying it for a while I started getting some fish to chase and swipe at it, but none were really committing to it. Ray goes through his box and look for something else to try too. He finds a 3 inch fluke to try. To toss at the schools swimming by. Shortly later Ray hooks up again, and lands his second fish of the day.



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Good fish that was worth a kiss.

Man I'm the one supposed to be doing the teaching here and I'm getting schooled. Shortly later I finally get my hookup on my leech.



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First fish of the day for me.

I kept at it and perseverance pays off and I get my second fish.



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Black leech baby!

We kept trying till a bit past sundown. Ray got one more dfg dinker on his Kastmaster and that was it.



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me showing Ray how I fillet fish.



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Plenty of roe in this one.

Ended our day with 5 fish between the two of us. Not too bad had a blast fishing even though catching was slow. Cant wait for our next trip out to pardee.

Till Then Guys
Mark