Trying for sac salmon 8/25/12

Went back out to try for salmon again today. Had my buddy Adam on the boat with me, both of us hoping to get some blood in the boat. Got to the ramp right at 0600 and man was I glad I showed up when I did. Right when I put the boat in the water I counted 10+ more vehicles in line waiting their turn. Very glad I was in the front of that line. Took off and headed down to freeport. Got to the bridge and started jigging. Right when we pulled up we saw a boat net a salmon plunking on the Sac side of the river. We were jigging down river to the spot I like to plunk at. I saw two more guys lose fish on jigs while we were drifting down. Right before I got to my spot where I wanted to drop anchor my jig got slammed. I drilled em and fish on baby! I felt it though and I could tell it wasn't enough weight to be a salmon. The fish came up, I saw color and saw I got a schoolie striper.

Lipped that little guy and brought him in.

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Not the target species, but its action and a little bit of pull. Hey wait what the hell is that?

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A reward disk! Sweet. I knew DFG put these on sturgeon. Never knew they put them on Stripers. A guy drifting by who saw me get the fish said DFG sent him 100 bucks for a disk he got on a sturgeon. I'll have to turn that in and see what I get. Dropped anchor there and tried plunking for an hour. I was looking around though and realized there are 30+ boats out here in the area. Everyonce in a while someone would drift by and they would say they saw someone up river got or lost one, so there were some fish in the area.

We kept at it for an hour or so, but nothing else happened. I was thinking about jigging again, but there were so many boaters out I didn't want to deal with them, so I ran up river to try up there for a bit. Made one long drift for nothing then tried for bass for a bit. Got some little smallies and Adam got a small spot.

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Was gonna try for bass a bit more, but the boat traffic on the river was just too much. Thats fishing on a saturday for ya. Off the water at 1100 and went to spend the rest of the day playing Frisbee Golf with my buddy Zach.

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My disk's

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If your wondering, yes it is a pain in the ass to try and throw a Frisbee in between all of these trees.

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Tried all day to get this shot on my phone which was surprisingly hard to do.

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Yea it was a picture taking day for me.

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Was able to get the money shot a few times.

I did absolutely horrible, but it was still a blast. Saturday well spent, ready to do it all over again.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

Sacremanto Salmon 8/12/12

Was planning on rolling out to the honey hole on the sac that we call the Salmon Hole this morning, but had some drama with friends and ended up staying up till 0300. When I woke up at 0430 I felt like crap and exhausted, so I rolled over and fell back asleep. 0513 I get a call from Ethan that I ignored and slept through, 0549 he calls me again, I woke up to it and told him leave me alone I'm sleeping, 0625 he sends me this picture.

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Garrett's buddy Ethan got a nice striper on a spinner, but I slept through that one.

Then 0641 he calls me again, omfg

man trying to sleep here. He tells me His buddy Andrew got a 10lber and they need me to come over later to clean it. I told him fine I'll do it later, now leave me alone I'm trying to sleep!!! Then 0649 Ethan calls me again, his friend Cameron just lost one, That's great, I don't care I'm sleeping leave me alone, He finally said ok get some rest. Then 0650 Garrett calls me telling me everything that Ethan has already told me again. I'm not getting any sleep this morning so screw it out the door I went.

I arrived on scene at 0723 telling everyone how much I hate them for waking my lazy ass up just in time to get out here after the hot bite, but whatever I was up anyways. I tossed my spinners and threw a kwikfish out to see if anything would happen. Everyone else was throwing Flying C's. Not much happened for a while, then around 0825 Andrew all quiet in his corner Ethan saw him with some bendo action going on and he asked him "You got another fish man?" He said yea. Holy crap Andrew is gonna get his limit!

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Bendo Baby!

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I see color!

Garrett stood at the ready and grabbed that bad boy by the tail.

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Fish out of water!

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Beautiful Chrome Buck

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Andrew with his first ever salmon and his first ever limit all in the same day!

Smaller one weighed out at 11lbs and the bigger one was 16.

Left at 0900 to beat the heat and get the fish cleaned before we all had to go to work. I don't know what these guys are gonna do if they ever catch a fish and I'm not available seeing as none of them know how to fillet a salmon. I'm trying to teach them, but they don't want to practice on salmon cause they don't want to waist any meat. I'll teach them when we start hitting Amador again.

No fish for me today, but it was great seeing Andrew finally get his first fish and to top it off with his first limit, what a morning! Hopefully many more to come soon.

Till Then Guys
Mark

Union Valley 8/7-8/8

Had a bunch of friends that wanted to go camping, I suggested Union Valley and everyone was game until the day before when everyone bailed out on me, but my girlfriend and I still had the time off of work so we were gonna go anyways. Everyone asked me when was the earliest I would be willing to leave? Like a smart ass not thinking anyone else would be crazy enough to wake up that early I said 0500, but that back fired on my when everyone including my girl friend said ok! Woke up way before the butt crack of dawn. Got everything together, picked up Deni and off we went up the mountain.

Arrived at the lake around 0700 and put the boat down in the water. The launch ramp here is a ways off from the camp grounds so I had to get the boat over to the camp grounds and my truck. Originally with everyone coming this wasn't an issue, but with just me and Deni, Deni not knowing how to drive my stick shift truck and never driven a boat before she had some learning to do. It was going to be way easier to teach her how to get the motor working on the boat then to teach her how to drive stick so I showed her the basics. Made sure she could start it up and everything on her own and then off she went.

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I was a little nervous about letting her go on her own, but it wasn't that far and its not like we were in the ocean or in the delta where I had my mishap.

Met her back at the camp ground got everything situated and then we hit the lake to do some fishing.

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We worked the banks and some rock piles with robo worms for a good while until we finally found some

schools holding in deeper water.

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Fished em carolina, texas, and on drop shot rigs didn't matter it all worked as long as we were fishing 10-20ft of water.

Didn't bring any fire wood along so after that quick fix we ran across the lake to another campground area where I've been to before where I knew had an area with tons of dry fire wood laying around everywhere.

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Little bit of time and some elbow grease and we had more then enough for a couple of nights.

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Nice and tight wood bundle complete with handles made for easy carrying and transport. Work smart not hard.

Talked to a lot of people around the camp grounds and no one was catching any fish anywhere. Most were trying for trout, but even the bass guys couldn't find em. They were all working the shallow banks and no one was trying any deep water.

Evening rolled around and we went out again to try for a top water bite and maybe see some trout rolling.

I introduced Deni to the wonderful world of top water and she didn't end up hooking into any, but she had plenty of blow ups and lost a few that got her heart pumping for sure.

I ended up sticking one on a Zara Puppy

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Biggest of the day.

No trout though. Back to the camp to enjoy a nice camp fire and get some rest so I could try and find some trout tomorrow.

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I had a slight temptation to try for koke's, but I have never caught one or even tried for them before and I don't like taking Deni with me on learning trips since she doesn't have the same amount of patience that I have.

Next day we went back into Jones Fork to look for some trout. A buddy of mine took me back here a few years ago and told me its usually always a good place to try for trout. Sure enough we got all the way back there walked in a little bit and I saw some surfacing in the area. Stuck a couple on a Kastmaster, but never landed any of them. Switched over to some salmon eggs below a bobber and started landing some.

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Fish on a stick!

Deni ended up sticking a few on a super duper

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The bite wasn't red hot, but the weather sure was. After a couple of hours we ran out of water and got tired of the heat so left there with a few trout for dinner and left a couple of bass with some sore lips as well.

Worked the evening again for another top water session for a few more blow ups and one more fish to the boat. Stayed that night and back home this morning in time to unload everything and get ready for work again.

Bass fishing was good, trout fishing sucked until we found em. The whole trip was a blast and some great fun with the girl friend. Glad I was able to get a camping trip in this summer before life got too busy with school and work.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark