Thursday Deni and I didn't have our schedules worked out to spend valentines day with each other unfortunately. I was planning on just working on homework all day, but luckily for me it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it was going to. In Rancho got some free time to the river I go! Had my friend Steven with me and we were at the honey hole around 1300 looking for fish. On an normal day I usually will see 4-5 fish hanging out in the area, but today I don't know what happened I saw a couple of dozen fish moving all around the area. Lots were chrome too. Dante recently hooked me up with a badass new fly fishing outfit that I brought out with me for the first time today in high hopes of getting my first steelie on the fly. Thanks Dante!!! Had to get used to the different weight, but it didn't take me too long to get it down and to get into a fish!
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First thing I realized was it is much harder to land one of these suckers on a fly rod. Takes a lot more patience and you have to play em out a lot longer. Nearly a 20 minute fight and fish finally gets up close to shore and pretty much jumps on to the bank for me.
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The fact that Steven managed to get this picture is nothing short of a miracle shot.
Did finally get him in and to the bank though.
Fish was unfortunately foul hooked behind the gill plate, but by far the most beautiful fish I have landed yet.
Either way I got a fish on the fly I was happy with my day. My next goal was to get Steven on his first steelhead. I spent the next hour trying to coach Steven and get him onto a fish. He managed to hook up 3 times only to have the fish spit the hook immediately after. That's why its called fishing though.
I started fishing again with my bait casting rod. I don't know if I could handle another fight on the fly rod. Over the next two hours I managed to hook into and lose 4 before I was finally able to land another one.
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Another one for the
Friday 2/15 I'm stuck working all day and getting
After a little over an hour without any bites. Ethan and Candace got cold/tired and headed back to camp to catch some ZZZ's. I had to try a couple of spots for a while longer, been looking forward to this trip for too long not to. Ethan told me he saw where a few jumped on his way out so I threw the power bait in there to see if I could get into anything. The hill I was on was too slanted for my chair and too rocky to put the rod holder I found into the ground so I was holding two rods while in the Asian squat waiting for a bite. Held the line tight just so I could feel anything that picked it up, and sure enough not more then 5 mins into it I got hammered and got my first Pardee fish. After that it was a bite every 2 mins and even after a few misses I had four fish in about 20 mins I didn't want to keep my limit cause I know wardens crack down hard on people here at Pardee on opening weekend, even at night. Since it was after midnight and I still wanted to fish the next day I left an open spot in my limit just so I can C&R the rest of the day.
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Nothing huge, but they are some fat little fish.
Next morning 2/16 I run down to the island next to the boat ramp and see a couple of schools milling around the area. Tried throwing jigs at em, most were really spooky and didn't want to hit, but I did managed to stick one out of the bunch.
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Went back to camp and cooked up some breakfast for everyone else then headed out to the Jackson creek spillway is what I guess is what it is technically called. Stood up high and we all cast various jigs, power bait, and power worms at passing schools and managed to get into a good amount of fish.
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One of mine.
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Shelby slamming em on her pink lemonade power bait. For Some reason I could not remember the name Shelby so I am changing her name Candace.
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The crew
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Deni with a nice one.
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Candace kissing one for good luck. I think Ethan found himself a keeper.
We fished it for a while and had our fun. Walking the fish all the way down and around the fence to the water or lifting them up 20 feet from the water to the top of the dam though was becoming a real struggle, after about 1300 we headed back to camp for lunch.
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The ones that came back with us.
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Our view from the campsite.
We tried off of the dam one more time after the sun had set.
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There were a lot of fish cruising around over here and I was really hoping that since I was getting them on jigs during the day I could hit them on glow jigs at night. One thing I have noticed at Pardee at night is that unlike Amador I can not get them to hit a glow jig. Power bait they will bite all night long, but for some reason they won't hit the tubes and night. We fished out here for roughly 30 mins. I actually had one hit that I missed. The wind picked up though, and before too long Deni was freezing. Since she isn't a die hard like I am she was pretty miserable, so we called it a night from there.
Sunday 2/17 Ethan had to be at work around 1000 so he and Candace left around 0730 to make it back in time. I woke up around 0900 and headed down to the island to see if I could bust a few fish while Deni was still sleeping. Found a school hanging out next to the bridge that me and one other guy worked pretty hard with our crappie jigs for an hour. I managed to get 4 out of it and he got probably 7 with both of us missing countless hits. I figured out and shared with him that since the fish were kind of spooky when they stopped looking at our jigs I could switch colors and then they would be interested for another 10 mins. till they figured it out and I would have to switch again. Luckily even though I only had 5 colors to work with, after I used all 5 I could start over again back to the beginning and it seeming like the fish had forgotten that they had already seen this color haha. After an hour though other people caught on and we had bobbers and sinkers bombarding us which of course spooked all of our fish off and the party was over. When will people ever learn?
Back to camp Deni was awake, took our sweet time with loading everything up and once we did that we headed back the dam to spend the rest of our afternoon. Much brighter sunnier day then yesterday and we could see and tight ball of trout the had decided to hang out in one corner of the dam. One other guy on the dam, Deni and myself had this whole school to our self's working em with crappie jigs and power worms for about two hours hooking fish pretty consistently and losing quiet a few as well.
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Deni with her first one of the day.
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Fish on baby!
All good things must come to an end though, again people caught on the the fact that we were catching fish and they weren't. About 6 other guys came up right next to us and started casting bobbers and Kastmasters over us turning it into a zoo and turned the fish off of the bite. Fish were still there, but action had died off and fishing wasn't the same with 10 people all casting to the same school of fish so we left from there around 1500.
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A few of the fish looked like this. Fat football fish with some serious shoulders on em.
Back home around 1600 the sun is still up and I admit it I crave the drug of a tug, so didn't even unload the car, grabbed my other rod and my box I needed for Steelies, and headed down the river. Should have expected it since I know my spot isn't a secret and it is the weekend, but for the first time ever today there was another fisherman in my honey hole. I walked up river as far as I could to let him have his space. Threw beads here for about 20 mins and managed to hook up once, but this fish peeled off 50 yards of line easily in the first run and even after hanging on for a 5 min fight I could not get the fish out of the rapids and he eventually popped off. Talked to the other fisherman there and he said that there was another fisherman here earlier who walked away with him limit so I know that these fish had been pounded all day. After hearing that and not seeing any fish I kind of lost confidence and left after about an hour of trying, at least I was still able to hook and fight one for a while.
There is my salmonoid filled past few days and you know I'll be back at it soon. Its an addiction. I am so thankful Deni tolerates it, especially when were out camping and I drag her out in the middle of the night to fish and I leave the bed early in the morning to get my quick fix.
Till Next Time Guys
Mark
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