Amador Moon Light Bite

Friday night 10/26/12 I meet Ethan and a couple other friends out at Amador to try to go for a night time trout bite. Got on the water around 2100 and powerbait lines went out. Ethan brought out a flood light this time to try and bring the bait fish in. Right away we saw some trout swimming around in the light. I threw my tubes at em and ended up getting one to swipe at it, but he missed. I kept throwing my jig for a while longer until I got slammed and I ended up pulling out a decent sized crappie. After that we noticed a lot of crappie coming up to the light and chasing the shad all around. A few of us threw jigs pretty much all night for the crappie, but we were only able to pull out two more. Next time we'll find a way to catch the shad and be able to use them as bait and tear em up.

The trout bite was fair to slow. We would get short spurts of bites on the powerbait. We would get 3 in 10 mins. then go 45 mins. without a bite. We kept at it though and burned the midnight oil to end up being pretty close to getting everyone to limit out. 4 guys we ended up with 3 crappie and 16 trout. We would have stayed longer to get the final 4, but our buddy Cameron didn't dress properly and was freezing his nuts off. He spent the last hour of the night just bitching about the cold and the rest of us just couldn't take anymore so we called it a night from there around 0330. Most fish came on powerbait, I started getting hits on my glow jigs finally when we turned the light off. Guess they were easier to pick out in complete darkness. I recently taught Ethan how to fillet fish, about time. Nice to have some extra help at the cleaning station to get everything done and almost half the time.

Our nights catch

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On my way home, maybe 5 mins on the road my check engine light came on. Crap got to check that out. Pulled over popped the hood and look at that my fan belt is gone. Absolutely wonderful, Ethan and everyone left ahead of me and is already gone, my phone is dead, and I'm pretty much in the middle of no where. Well have to figure something out. I had some rope in my truck I managed to make a redneck fan belt out of, but as you could imagine it didn't work as well as the real thing. I got the fan spinning again, but not at full speed. The rest of my night ended up being driving 5 minutes, pull over take a 30 min nap and wait for the truck to cool down, drive 5 more minutes, take another nap, and do it all over again. My normal 35-40 min home ended up taking me 4 hours. Didn't roll into town until about 0830 to where I could stop and get my truck fixed. Spent all kinds of money I didn't want to but had to, so needless to say no Amador for me for a while. Luckily I made it home safe and sound though and I still have a vehicle to take me from A to B and just as importantly back to A.

Night didn't end great, but fishing still was. Next time we'll have to try to target those crappie a little more.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark