Hagen Park Trout

Well update on me for everyone I am currently between two jobs at the moment and until I start my

new job I've been so broke I can't even afford fishing trips anymore, I still have to get my fix in some how though so when I get the chance I've been hitting Hagen when I'm in Rancho Cordova to see the girl friend. Hit the pond Friday 12/14/12 with my friend Adam after the most recent stock. Moved away from the majority of the crowd on the pond and found a school of fish holding close to a weed line and we went to town on them for a while.

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We got most of our fish on chartruese powerworms under a bobber and I showed Adam how to drop shot powerworms and he ended up catching the majority of his fish on that. We would pound the fish for the better part of a half hour or so then they would move on us we would have to find em again and once we did we would get bites left and right. Best technique I saw one gentlemen was working a trout magnet under a bobber and he was doing most of the catching by far. Ended that day with about 15 fish for each of us.

Went back Sunday 12/16/12 with Deni to kill a few hours. Found fish in the same spot but not in the same numbers as Friday.

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Been growing the beard out since I've been out of work.

I managed to pop 3 on a powerworm on a drop shot and one on powerbait with in 30 mins, but as I was working to get my 5th a cormorant came swimming through and scared all of my fish off.

Kept working the pond for another hour until my school finally came back and I popped my last one on rainbow powerbait.

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After that Deni was pretty cold and was getting bored from struggling to find a bite so we called it a day from there.

I should be back to work within another week hopefully. I need cash to make it to the Christmas bash and I still have a sturgeon out there waiting for me with my name on it.

Till Then Guys
Mark

Amador 12/19/12

My dad wanted to get back out to Amador, especially with reports of DD fish being caught recently. On the water just after 0800, Weather was bright, barely breezy, but absolutely freezing. Weather was so cold I couldn't even get my motor started so we started off

trolling around the dam with grubs and Rapala's. Nothing here so we headed towards Mountain Springs where my dad and I usually hook a few. As were on our way there my dad remember how slow the bite was our last trip out here and what worked when it was slow so he threw a powerworm on. Wasn't much later he stuck one and drew first blood. I thought to myself I should switch, but no the grub should work. Then he sticks another one that gets farmed. Sold, I'm switching! My dad was sticking em on brown, I decided to try my luck on chartreuse.

By the time I switched over though, the school was gone. I found a couple fish that fell to the powerworm at the mouth of Doney Bay, but it was also short lived. We did a few laps between the two locations seeing a few fish surfacing, but next to no action.

I'm starting to learn how to read my fish finder in knowing whats fish, bait, and just crap. As I'm looking at it I see a bunch of fish close to the surface. Told my dad looks like were going over a school of trout, then just like that my rod doubled over. Pretty awesome seeing em then hooked them just like that. Kept looking at my fish finder and I saw this half a dozen times.

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If I didn't know any better I would think that there were sturgeon in Amador! One can dream.

After that fish we couldn't find anything anywhere. Decided while the bite was slow we would check out Jackson. Figured it should be looking good with the water level up a bit. Got the boat a good ways back into the creek and saw no fish, but crystal clear water and beautiful scenery. Sorry I didn't snap and pic for you guys I was occupied on looking for fish. Nothing back here though so off we went.

I graphed a crap load of fish right at the spill way, probably from today's plant. We killed the motor and tried tossing jigs and flies at em to see if we could get any more. 2 more hours of plugging away ended with 3 more fish to the boat and we thought it was a good days work from there. 7 fish to the boat and freezing our nuts off, were happy with the day's turn out. Off of the water today around 1630.

Got back to the cleaning station and took care of the catch.

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Nothing massive today, and apparently DFG came in and stocked Amador sometime recently. There is a 20lber out there with my name on it though, I'll find him soon enough.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

P.S. Sorry for lack of pictures on this one guys, wasn't really feeling like a picture day.

New Melones 12/28/12

Took the boat back to Melones in search of these beautiful hold overs I keep hearing about, but have yet to see myself. Brought my dad out and met our friend Harry(Some of you may know him as H-man from other boards). Harry, forgive me for not remembering the name, recently has come down with a serious condition and was at a point where he could no longer walk for a few months. The condition I have been told is not cureable, but somewhat treatable. He has reached a point though where he can get on his feet and can move around a bit, so its great to be able to see him back on the water again. I got him on the boat with

me and the plan was for my dad to follow us on the pontoon. At the ramp though he found out he had the wrong pump so he stayed at the ramp shore bound while Harry and I took off around the lake. I probably could fit 3 people in the boat, but it would be super cramped and uncomfortable.

Harry and I started off trolling towards coyote creek. I was planning on trying to hit the area's Garrett and I found fish last time I was here. Near the mouth I marked a lot of fish and Harry popped one trolling a powerworm. We cut the trolling motor and tried drifting over them. Harry nailed one more drifting a powerworm and another on a black wooly bugger. Not a hot and heavy bite, but definatly worth making a drift for. Tried one more drift for nothing so back to the troll. After 15 more minutes of trolling we didn't get a hit and I saw nothing on the FF, so we made a quick run back into the arm where I found fish previously and found 2 other boats fighting fish and sure enough Harry hooked another one about a minute or so into the troll.

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After that like always Harry puts on a show nailing fish after fish like he always does.

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We were both trolling the same exact bait. Same color and everything. The only difference Harry told me he had was a slightly bigger split shot and his hook was a size 14 fly hook. He said he liked them because they came out of the fish easier, they are perfectly straight so there are no imperfections in the worm, and they don't weigh the worm down as much so they sink slower.

And it was defiantly working for him.

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Before I knew it he had 8 fish and counting to my fat skunk.

Not after too long We reached the back of the arm where the creek comes in. We had a few chasers on flies and jigs here, but we couldn't get anything to really commit. We got real close to the creek though and Harry tells me he saw a school of bigger fish passing us. He was in the water and couldn't reel up in time. I was able to get my jig right in front of em though and finally slammed my first fish of the day.

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I have to say defiantly worth the wait.

3 or 4 cast later I slammed another beautiful New Melones hold over Rainbow.

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Definatly my PB out of Melones.

We worked the area hard and managed to get a few more smaller fish and farm a couple as well.

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The fish learned pretty quick though to avoid the boat and that what we were offering them wasn't what they wanted.

Trolled back out after a good hour or more of working the creek and Harry went right back to slamming the planter on the powerworm. I did manage to finally stick one on my powerworm and missed a few hits. Around 1430 we decided to call it a day from there. Plenty of more fish to be caught, but they planters weren't nearly as exciting as the bigger hold over fish.

Great day on the water today. Was great to see Harry back on the water again. I used to watch this man walk miles up and down the shores of Amador and the American river. He was even a float tubing fool! I really hope he will get back to that state again, but unfortunatly its pretty doubtful. I was very happy to see him having a blast out on the water today and very glad he can still enjoy the outdoors.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

Amador Night 12/29/12

Decided to give Amador a shot at night seeing as how the trolling bite out there for me had only been fair on my past few trips. Convinced Adam and Garrett to come out and brave the cold with me in hopes of some decent trout numbers, and hopefully finally get into some size. On the water around 2000 to find no one out on the dock. That's either because its too cold for anyone else to be stupid enough to come out here and fish at night, or the fish haven't been active at night. I was hoping it was the first option. The whole dock to our self's we tried spreading out and covering all of the area's and depths to find the fish. Dropped powerbait down on most rods and Garrett and I tried jigging some glow in the dark crappie tubes.

Little more then an hour into the night I get the first bite and bring a sunfish up out of the water.

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Pretty sure it's some kind of crappie red ear

hybrid, but not 100% sure.

For only that one bite in over an hour though man it was slow and if Adam didn't bring his stove out to make hot chocolate for us the cold would have been much worse. Luckily that and plenty of layers made the weather fairly bearable.

I told Garrett it was his turn to catch a fish, then an hour and a half later one of Garrett's rods goes off. He set the hook on this fish and once he felt that weight of the fish he shouted fish on with the excitement of a 6 year old catching their first fish. Then fish made a jump put some slack in his line and he screamed NO!!!! at the top of his lungs with more sorrow then I've ever heard in my life. I really believe he was about to shed a tear, if not start flat out balling. Lucky for Garrett the fish was still on though, all was good we netted the fish and Garrett got the skunk off of his back.

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He was pretty excited about this fish if you could imagine.

This one's for you Marv!

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It was one of those nights.

Roughly 3 hours into the night we only had two bites. I decided to check my powerbait that had been sitting out all night and found it flat as a pancake. There's one more bite I wasn't around for. Some how though with the lack of fish biting we managed to stay pretty entertained just between talking shit between eachother and talking about looking forward to next years shad and salmon season. Yea were all ready thinking about it.

Adam brought a cup o noodles for each of us too to keep us warm throughout the night. As we were heating em up someone mentioned cooking up the one trout we had as well, then the idea of adding it to the cup o noodles sounded godly. Filleted that bitch on the dock, seared it in the pot real quick and we had some trout noodles for dinner and I got to tell you if was freaking delicious.

All night I kept hoping the bite would turn on as I've seen it get better as the night has gone on before. There was defiantly no lack of bait around.

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Saw thousands of shad milling around the dock as usual.

Guess its just too cold for the trout to be active at night. We stuck it out till 0000, but with the bite not picking up after that it just wasn't worth staying any longer. Still was a great night on the water regardless of the bite being poor. I have to say so far Amador has been pretty disappointing this year for me. New Melones seems to be where its at.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

City Limit Trout 12/3/12

When I was fishing on Melones with Garrett He told me that Hagen Park in Rancho got stocked. I used to fish here a lot back in highschool and since I was gonna be in the area anyways I found the time to go and give the pond a shot while I was in Rancho for school. Got to the pond around 1200 and my friend Adam was all ready out there slamming a few.

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Only him and one other guy out there which was nice not having to deal with a crowd. I walked around and found a few that wanted to hit a jig.

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I just kept moving and working water till I found a consistent area with biting fish. After that it was pretty easy pickings.

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I was working jigs the majority of the time. Adam was slamming most of his fish on powerbait.

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Lots of memories fishing at this pond. Plenty of good and bad, but I love being able to fish a city pond with great action. Especially back when this pond was only a 10 min. walk from my house.

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I gave my friend Brian a call and told him to come on down and join in on some of action. Took a little convincing but I got him and his girlfriend to come down and fish a little bit. Pretty easy convincing when the location is so close and it doesn't cost them a dime.

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Didn't take long to get them on fish.

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I had them set up with a powerworm under a bobber and it was getting hit pretty frequently.

Ashayla with her first fish ever.

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Close to 1530 Garrett finally got out of school and came down to join us. He had a goal of having a double with himself that he never was able to achieve, but he gave it his all in trying for it.

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Closer to sundown the action started to pick up even more.

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The crowds started coming out too though and the sun was setting so we all called it a day around sundown. Not really sure how many I caught. I usually stop counting after 5, but I know I was some where close to 30 when Garrett arrived. Everyone else was doing just as good. Only person I saw doing better then us was a kid throwing some roe that the trout were just hammering.

Felt great getting back to an area where I learned a lot of my roots. I spent a lot of my time as a teenager at this pond and learned how to fly fish here. Also learned how to keep crowds away from you here all in the same process if you know what I man Lots of fun doing some C&R all day and just fishing with friends.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark