Doran Beach 6/25/13

Been feeling like traveling to fish recently, and I looked at the tides at Bodega and they lined up with one of my days off, so I called a few friends and arranged the trip for a chance at some rock fish and eels. Loaded the car and we were on the road out of Rancho around 0430 to make the 0718 minus tide. Got to the beach around 0650 and threw a couple of crab rings out while Steven and I tried for rockfish while Deni and our friend Ally tried for eels. Pretty quickly into it Steven and I were getting a lot of hits, but missing em left and right. After several missed hits from the both of us Steven finally draws first blood.

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

Nice little rocky to start the day off with. The rock fish bite stayed pretty consistent for us throwing texas rigged white tubes. Steven even managed to get a short cabby.

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

Even though they are always short I love seeing lings and cabezon caught here, fairly rare catches and very cool looking fish.

The summer minus tide and I'm sure the rain that we were fishing in made for some really murky and low vis water conditions which made the poke pole fishing pretty hard for Deni. Luckily for me though the tube bite stayed consistent throughout the whole morning.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 720x960.

Even in tough conditions the poke pole queen still managed to pull out a few small rockies and one eel.

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

If you ask me though rockfish are just way more fun.



Steven and I were checking our crab rings every 20 mins or so and we got a decent haul of the red crabs.

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

I love the taste of these crabs way more then dungies, but I think twice about keeping em sometimes just because it's 5 times as much work to get half of the meat out of em. Screw it though, I'm planning on feasting tonight.

We worked the area until close to 1000 before the tide came in on us and fishing died off. At this point Steven and I are soaking wet from the rain, mist, and wind out there. Fishing was good but the elements were not working with us today. The girls had already ran back to the car to dry off and warm up maybe an hour or so ago. Wasn't ready to call it quits just yet though so I went out to the jetty to try and get some crab to bring home to the pot. Steven joined me later and we worked a couple of rings and a couple crabhawks for another 4 hours for a few more red and rock crab with one legal dungie in the mix.

Our cooler at the end of the day.

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

Made it back home around 1700 with plenty of time to clean everything and cook up a fantastic dinner.

All of our rock fish + Deni's eel.

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

Plus all of the crabs we came home with.

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

Boiled up the crabs and fried some rock fish nuggets while that was cooking.

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

Its hard to beat fresh fried Rock fish. My favorite part of making trips to bodega without a doubt is dinner later.

I tried for a short while to dig for clams while I was out there. Saw a lot of people digging for em out there. I just was not feeling getting down and dirty in the mud and the sand while I was already soaked to the bone and freezing in the cold.

Great trip and looking forward to the next.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

Ray's in The Bay

Garrett and I have both been itching for something that pulls hard on the line, so Garrett said lets try for Ray's and sharks out in the bay. We started the morning on a Jetty in Fort Baker to try for some rockfish. Garrett had a few friends that met us down there. They managed to pull a few Lings out of there in a little more then an hour. I couldn't believe that while we were there I saw 4 lings get caught and not a single rock fish. I'm not a big salt water fisherman, but I've never seen that before and I thought it was crazy. The bite there didn't really last so we took off to get what we came for. Paradise beach pier was where we set up shop, and it didn't take long for us to get a bite. The second we got all of our rods out Garrett hooks up.

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

Ray's pull hard baby.

Got him to the pier and we got our first fish of the day.

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

Also Garrett's first ever Ray.

For the next hour, bites came pretty quick and Garrett was sticking fish here and there.

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

I couldn't buy a bite for some reason, but I didn't really matter to me. I was just enjoying the day and as long as someone was catching something I was happy.

Sure enough Garrett was doing some catching too.

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

The PB of the day. I haven't caught a lot of Rays or ever put one on a scale so I don't know if I have an accurate judgement of the weight of this thing but it was probably 20+ maybe close to 30lbs.

Make sure we get rid of this.

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

Definitely don't want that thing getting stuck in either of us. That would be a terrible end to our day.

The tide went slack and the bite died for us after that. I managed to pull a few keeper reds out with my crab ring I bought for trip and around 1400 Garrett managed one more ray. Left the pier around 1800. Not tons of action for us, but we had a blast while it lasted. Trips like this make me wish I lived a little closer to the bay so I could fish in the salt a little more often.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

Union Valley 6/23/13

Ethan (Etray) and his girlfriend Shelby told me they were camping this weekend at Union Valley and I went up to spend a night at the lake with them to get out of the valley. Been a while since I've come up with way and every first trip of the year up here for me I forget how much I love the drive alone. The scenic mountain route is absolutely beautiful, and I love driving on the windy narrow mountain roads (especially ice house road), I just think its a blast.

I got to the lake a few hours ahead of Ethan. Dropped the "First Impression" in and headed for the Camino Cove camp grounds. I went up to grab a spot and the campground was packed!!! Not a single spot open, who's idea was it to come up on a Saturday night? Plan B, I took the boat across the cove and found an open area with a fire pit someone had built and Made camp there. Got all my gear unpacked and started Getting my fishing gear together. At this point it was about 1930 and I knew the smallies would be busting top water plugs. I rigged up a couple bass rods and a couple rods for trout. Once I got a kastmaster tied on one rod I thought what the hell lets make a cast and see what happens. That spoon hit the water and two cranks in it got hammered and I got my first fish in the box.

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

Or the bucket for that matter.

I was a little worried though. Catching a fish on my first cast has usually always been bad luck for me. I'm choosing to be optimistic though. Made a couple more cast, but nothing else was going for it. Pushed the boat back in and started throwing a little spook around the rock piles for some smallies.

First 5 mins. into it I popped this guy on a super spook jr.

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

Love that top water action.

I pulled one other smaller fish off of the same pile on a robo worm, then worked some more rocks for 3 more blow ups, but nothing else stuck.

Beautiful evening on the lake though. Didn't realize it till just then, but I've missed this scene a lot.

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

Next morning We all took the boat back in towards the inlet of the lake to try for some trout action. Found the fish hanging out in a small cove in the back and went to town on em for a while.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 768x1024.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 768x1024.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 768x1024.

We ended up pulling 9 small planters out of here a long with a few missed as well. Ran back to camp when the bite died off and moved camp into one of the camp sites after the crowd had taken off. I had two crawdad traps out the whole time I was here as well that camp up empty. People tell me they are in this lake, but I have ever yet to see one here.

I took off and headed home around 1800 since I had to work Monday morning. Fun over nighter on the lake I'll have to be sure to make another trip or two up here this summer.

Funniest moment for me, as I came by on the boat fishing for bass a camper asked me if I had any luck. I told him I got a few, but it was kinda slow. He told me "I've been here for 4 days and haven't caught a thing." Then is the saddest pouty voice said "I guess I'm gonna have to go to the dam and try to catch some small truck trout." I didn't respond back the that, but really? Your talking down on truck trout, but what do you expect to catch here in the cove that's right next to the dam? 18 inch hold overs? Yea I don't think so, all of these trout are truck trout man. Its not like they weren't there either Saturday night in the evening the trout were rising everywhere in the cove. Guy just baffled me talking like planter trout are some kind of trash fish.

Next time I'll hope to have more time to maybe target Mac's or Koke's out there and do some diving try to find out where the crawdads are in this lake.

Till Next Time
Mark

Dad's on The AR

Well as far as I'm concerned shad season on the AR has come and gone. A few weeks ago I got skunked on an outing for em and to be skunked in June, the usual peak of the season on the AR . . . . there are no words for how pitiful and ridiculous that is. No where in really particular has peaked my interest much to go fishing for recently so I've been staying local and diving on the AR to grab some crawdads. Usually I have a few friends that come down to hang out at the river with me. Some try to dive with me and grab the crawdads, but they either aren't strong enough swimmers to get down to em and chase em (yes those suckers can move pretty fast under water if they want to be), or they are just too scared of em to pick em up without the fear of getting pinched. I usually just grabbed bare handed, but I've given a few of my friends gloves and they still wont touch em.

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

Recently Ethan has been coming out with me too and he actually helps in contributing to the bucket which is nice. I usually do two hour sessions on the river and on a good day I can fill up half of a 5 gallon bucket with mud bugs.

The other day I found the biggest crawdad I've ever seen in my life.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 768x1024.

I know they get this big on a regular basis in some mountain lakes, but for the AR this guy is a real lobster.

I never got to measure him out, but this picture really puts it to scale on his size.

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

And then a comparison between him and an average sized AR dad.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 768x1024.

Been putting my work in and I must say the reward for it is awesome.

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

I usually throw some sausage and a bunch of veggies in the pot to boil with em. The other day and made an Alfredo pasta with the meat from the tails in it that was killer! I'm getting more creative with my receipts for em, and they all are delicious.

This is where I'll probably be and where you'll find me for the next few weeks for the most part until salmon season opens. Even with shad gone I find ways to get my summer fishing fix in.

Till Next Time
Mark