Cache Slough 2/21/12

Talked to Kevin and we both have the sturgeon bug so we meet up to give it a shot, can't catch them at home. Got to Vierra's around 0730 armed with roe, eel, grass, sardines, and shad. Made the run up into Cache and searched for the arch's on the screen. Little harder to find today, but they were there. Lots of surface activity today too, saw half a dozen or more jump while we were there/headed into the slough. Started in roughly 35 ft. of water during the slack.

Tide switched to incoming and after it did I started getting very little nibbles on the roe. Nothing I could really set the hook on though. Kevin got a couple nibbles on his sardine, but again nothing he could swing at.

Little later into the morning we saw the Game warden come out and was checking boats around us for licenses and everything. I went to grab my licenses and pull my sturgeon card out to have it ready for when they check us and realized I forgot it in my truck. Not good, I had a pretty sick sinking feeling of hopefully they will be cool with me and let me run back and get it. Really didn't want to get a ticket for something stupid like that. By some miracle of luck for me though they rolled right by us without giving us a second look. The universe was nice to me today. After they took off I couldn't risk it back to the ramp we went to get my license.

Hour later we get back to the fishing grounds and I found a good school of fish holding in 70 ft. of water. Dropped down to em to see if we could get something to really bite. Kevin gets a decent hit on his eel and when he goes to swing on the hook set his spool spun cause the drag wasn't set tight enough and opportunity missed. Later I gave up on the grass and switched it out for some shad. Almost immediately it got slammed and when I swung for the hook set I made the same mistake and another opportunity gone. Can't believe we both made that same rookie mistake practically back to back. Nothing much else here after that besides small nibbles on shad and eel.

Improvised some new rob balancers for my boat and was testing them out today.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x768.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x768.

I feel like they can be slightly better, but they still get he job done. Work in progress.

Wind was kicking up good now and was rocking the boat just a little too much for Kevin and he started getting pretty green so we headed further in to fish some calmer waters. Found some more arch's in 45 ft of water and dropped the baits back down there to hopefully get something in the boat.

I lost Kevin for a while though.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x768.

He got pretty comfy and passed out trying to sleep his sick feeling away. Rod in hand and everything.

Fished here through the next tide change and not until the beginning of the outgo we started getting nibbles on roe and shad, but only nibbles, nothing real solid or any pumps to swing at. Warden came back around and checked us, really glad I made the run back to get my license now. Got lucky on that one. Talked to them for a bit and they said they haven't seen anyone with a fish all day, so at least its not just us. We did see one boat fighting a fish, but never managed to see them land it.

That was all of our action we had today though. Off of the water around 1500 to make it back home to go to school on time. Had a hard time leaving I wanted to stick it out to get that good bite. Learning a little more with each trip though, finding more holes, and getting closer to that keeper. Going to try to make it back out in a week or two to try again, nice to have some company with me today and not be bored to death out there solo just staring at my rods the whole time. Great fishing with you Kevin! We'll get em next time, hopefully.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark