Sac River Chromers

A few weeks ago I saw an old high school friend of mine was talking about fishing out on the Sacramento River and I mentioned to him he should throw some Flying C's and try for some salmon when he was out there. He had no idea what I was talking about, but was very curious about how to catch a salmon. After a week or so of me texting and sending him tips and tricks I went and met him around the Garcia Bend area to throw some spinners from the bank.

We went out for the first time on 9/10/16 to fish the morning hours. Got on the water around 0600 and started casting. Once the sun came out I stuck a fish on a silver body rainbow bladed Flying C. Fish never ran very far, but it put up a hell of a fight at the shore and didn't want to give up. After a few minutes I got the fish to tire out and I beached him on the rocks and grabbed him by the gill. First time out the season and I got one! Doesn't get much better then that.

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Fish was a 15lb hen, nice and bright too. I was glad to see the fish are still bright even though I got what seems to me a really late start on the season.

We fished until about 0930 that morning without any other luck or seeing anything else happening. Throughout the week we both hit the river for a couple of hours before and after work since it's on the way home. My friend Brad said one morning he saw a guy catch a 23lb buck and one evening he saw someone else catch about an 8lb steelhead.

I met up with him Friday afternoon 9/16/16 after work and I am super impressed to see and hear that Brad has been coming out at least every other day to try and get one. Love seeing the persistence and determination in newer anglers because I know it can get really discouraging at times. He got on the water around 1600 and I showed up after 1800. We make out cast over and over again shooting the shit like always. Around 1900 I watched Brad make a cast, didn't even let the spinner sink at all, made two cranks on the reel then he slammed the hook. I knew for a fact he didn't get snagged way out there on the surface of the water. I looked up and sure enough his rod had that slight pump going on and I knew he hooked into one that just hadn't woken up yet. I was waiting to see the excitement on Brad's face from hooking into his first salmon and waiting for him to yell fish on! As I was watching him though I could see that he looked really confused and I saw him start to drop his rod. He thought for sure he has a snag. I told him though once I saw that, "Brad reel! Reel fast dude you got a fish on!" He still didn't really believe me, but he followed my instructions and once the fish got close to the shore it freaked out and jump clear out of the water and the excitement came out if Brad that I was looking for, now he believed me lol.

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Brad did a great job handling the fish and after a few minutes we got it in the net and on the shore. Salmon cherry popped baby!

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Brad got himself an 11lb buck, beautiful bright fish and a hell of a catch for his first ever salmon. He's ruined now. We fished for another half hour then packed up and I showed him how to fillet the fish.

Back again the next day Saturday morning. We threw our spinners from 0600-0900 for nothing. It's the weekend though and the tides looked good so I went home after that and knocked all of the cobwebs off of the boat and pulled her out in hopes to troll up a few in Walnut Grove. My friend Ray, Brad and myself were on the water and trolling by 1300. We had Silvertons in various colors and a kwikfish out for our offerings. Around 1600 I noticed the tide started coming in and picked up pretty well. 1605 Ray's rod gets hammered I tell him to grab it, fish is gone. Damn, he puts it back in the holder and it gets hammered again! Ray picks up the rod and the fish didn't stick. WTF? That's upsetting, oh well it happens. 1615 my rod gets wrecked, I pick it up and it's on. Get the other rods in, I bring the fish to the boat and Brad does a perfect net job and we box our first fish of the day.

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Great spirit lifter after trolling for a few hours without anything and then seeing a fish hit twice and not stick. I flip the boat around to run back through the school, I set out my first rod put it in the holder and when I grab my second rod and start letting line out I hear Ray in the back round and ask me, "Mark I think you might have one." I look back and sure enough my first rod is singing again. Holy crap were hooked up again. I drop my second rod and get my first one in hand and we're on again. Brad grabs the net and this one would not come out from under the boat for several minutes, but after several minutes of trying to keep that fish out if the prop we got her on board.

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5 mind back to back fish and I got my limit, how sweet is that! Put the rods back in the water kept on trolling. Within the next half hour we saw a lot of fish caught all around us, they were on the bite. We weren't able to get another though. We stuck it out until 1900 and called it a day. My fish were a 10lb buck and a 14lb hen. Both caught on a red/silver Silvertron. I'll be hitting the Sac a lot this year since it's on my way to and from work. Fishing is getting better though that's for sure. Can't wait to get more.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

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American Shad

I haven't gotten around to writing many reports so let me put up a summary here for you guys. I've been making shad trips out when I can, I've been able to get out maybe 2-3 times a week depending on work and have fished various areas of the barbless section of the American River with great success.

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Most nights I have gone out and caught anywhere from 5-30 fish depending on if I try for stripers or not. I've personally seen and caught a lot of big females this year ranging from 2-4lbs. Fish for me have been falling victims to the pink champagne grubs in either 1 inch or 1 1/2 lengths on a 1/16th jig head. Some days when the flows got high I was adding a 1/32nd split shot to get a better and deeper drift, but I've had great luck just free lining the grub as well.

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I've had good luck throughout all times of the day, but the evenings from 1700-2000 has been the best time frame for the hot bite.

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Starting the week before Memorial weekend the crowds have been coming out in full force, including the rafters but they don't effect the bite too much.

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I have tried free lining live shad out for the big stripers several times now. I've had my shad get chased around a few times, but I haven't personally had any hits or runs on them yet. I'll keep trying though.

Have fun out there guys the season is on!

Mark

Bodega Bay Crab Opener 2016

We have been looking forward to this for a while now especially since the season was closed last year and I never made it out when they did open it. Etray and I have had a lot of slow days at the shop recently, but we've been using all of the spare time to get our pots ready and compliant with the new laws and then getting my bosses boat ready for the trip.

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My boss Ron went down and got a campsite Wednesday so Etray and I came down Friday night and got the boat loaded and all of the bait bags ready. Saturday morning BigK and Etray's Dad and brothers joined us.

After waiting in line for a little bit at Westside we got the boat in the water around 0700 and we on our way out to the bay. We had a whole line of pots to run, Etray picked up 10 new pots for cheap and I had 7 the I've accumulated over the past couple of years so we had a lot of gear to run. We started in about 30ft of water and dropped 10 pots between 30-60ft of water. The other 7 we took out to 80ft. Etray and I baited and set all of the pots and it took us a little over an hour. I had to leave early so we just circled back around and started pulling pots. We knew it wasn't really a long enough soak, but we had some high hopes and I wanted to try to get a few before I had to go.

We had a few rock crabs and a legal dungie or two in almost every pot. The legal dungies we got were huge! We didn't have stacked pots yet, but we were getting some keepers.

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We kept at the grind trading turns and hauling the pots in since we didn't get out puller installed in time for the weekend. All of our shallow pots consistently had legal dungies in them.

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Looking at our pots too those guys were tearing into and loving our bait offerings we had for them. We baited the traps with a slurry of Salmon, Rockfish, and cut and whole American Shad.

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I could tell you without a doubt those Shad did wonders for us. I'm gonna keep a lot more next summer because those crab ran through them like it was no tomorrow.
When we got to the end of our line the deeper pots came up pretty empty so we relocated them to try and find some more fruitful grounds. When we dropped the last pot and we're about to make the turn to make our second pass at our line the rope fouled up the prop and we were dead in the water. I was already not feeling great as it was, but once I felt the boat stop dead in its tracks and the ocean took over the movement of the boat I went over the edge and started chumming the seas. Etray and BigK worked hard to clear the prop and I felt so bad that I was helpless due to my seasickness.
After about a half hour of them trying to clear the prop they made the call and the seas were just too rough and the rope was wrapped around the prop too tight. We made a few calls and the Auxiliary Coast Guard came out to tow us in. We got towed back to where the coast guard station was then the CG boat repositioned itself and tied off to us side by side to bring us back to Westside. After resuming the tow we got to talking to the guys and I don't know if the guys wasn't paying attention or just didn't see it, but next thing we knew we turned around and one of the channel markers is coming right at us. We all yelled watch out watch out, but it was too late. Etray went out there and thought about trying to push us away from it, but there was no stopping it. We all stepped back from the side and the side of our boat slammed into the channel marker. The ladder on the side of it left a few gashes and ripped a huge hole in the wall of the top deck of the boat. The impact broke off a few running lights, the support of the Bimini top, snapped the Antena, and left various other dents and scratches.

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No major Damage to the boat's integrity as a whole, but WTF? We are all just looking at the boat and the damages in awe. You could see it on all of our faces, did that just happen? Did the Coast Guard really slam us into a channel marker? How did he not see the giant poll out here in the Harbor? We were all in shock. Back at the dock several other coast guard members were there to file out their report and check us all out. Once we tie off to the dock and get settled now we are being grilled for everything, where's the registration?, you got enough life jackets?, etc. Then the Warden comes down and now he comes on board, what did you guys catch?, where are all of the crab?, I need all of your licenses, etc. We were in trouble for anything, but man it felt like a real intimidating interrogation. Everything got taken care of though and we pulled the boat out of the water, cut the rope off of the prop and got everything else squared away.
I had to go home so I took 5 crab home with me and the guys prepared to go back out and pull the pots again. They ended up not going back out again until Sunday and to make the trip even worse out of our 17 pots they were only able to locate 9 of them. Don't know of the rest were stolen, knots came undone, or if they got dragged away in the swells and current. It's a big ocean there are a number of different possibilities that could have happened. Ducks though that a lot of money to just be washed away. The pots they did find were tampered with without a doubt, we got raided. The few that weren't messed with had some nice quality crab in it though.

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We heard rumors that a lot of people's pots got dragged a good ways south with the high swells and current so maybe later this week we can go back out and find them in Tomales bay, we'll see.

Overall it was a crazy eventful trip/weekend. We didn't get as many crab as we had hoped for plus the unfortunately loss of 8 pots, but that's life. Hopefully we'll be back out there doing it again soon.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

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P.S. for those who are wondering my boss's boat is a Bennington pontoon boat that he custom welded a bow onto to make it sea worthy. The boat is 31ft in overall length. We had a lot of weird/stunned looks throughout the day with this thing plus loads and loads of compliments at the ramp. It was a super smooth and comfy ride out at sea as well.

Mothball Fleet 12/3/16

I've been seeing all kinds of pictures and reports all over the internet recently of people slamming sturgeon and I couldn't take it anymore, I had to get out there for myself. Brought my friends Elijah and Katie along with me and we put in at Belden's around 0730. We dropped anchor in about 24ft of water with several marks on the screen. Didn't long and we were getting small hits here and there. Offered roe, eel, and some ghost. Everything was getting hit, but ghost and the eel were getting the most attention right away. Had a few decent pulls, but we couldn't stick anything. We fished the outgo for a few hours with lots of bites, but no hook ups. The tide slowed down a little bit along with the bite. We ran to Martinez for a quick bathroom break then came back out. We dropped anchor right at the slack. We saw a few marks on the graph still and we were just waiting for the tide to turn.
The second we got movement in the water again one of my roe rods dips down and I slam into the first fish of the day. Nothing big, but we got a sturgeon in the boat. Nice little shaker, I measured him out just to see and it taped out at 32 inches. Right when I looked away from the tape measure though my other roe rod doubled over and I dropped everything and slammed into another one. Elijah threw the shaker over board and got the net ready because I knew I had a decent one this time. Fish flirted with the anchor line a lot, but never got around it luckily. Fish came up and Elijah came in with a perfect net job and we got a keeper in the boat.

Taped out at 48 inches, tagged and bagged!

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Got the rods back in the water and came down from my high. First one I've tagged this year. Super excited and happy we got a keeper. Elijah has come with me several times now and not once have we been successful so this was great, now we just need two more.
Not more then a half hour later after all of our ghost was getting robbed by shaker stripers another roe rod goes off and Elijah drills it, line snaps. Man heart breaker, that's ok they are biting our hopes are high and they were good. 5 minutes later it goes off again and Elijah slams it home and we're on. His fish immediately swims across and over all of our other lines before I get the chance to clear them, no major tangles though we work out the mess. After a few stronger runs then my fish had his comes to the surface and we net the fish and have our second keeper of the day! It's official another sturgeon cherry popped.
Rods back out we only need more more for the full boat limit. Katie was kind of intimidated to try to set the hook and fight one, but after seeing Elijah and I get one each she was excited to get a shot with one. We get her up on the rods and wait for our next bite. In the mean time Elijah and I did catch several shaker stripers on sardines while we're waiting for the sturgeon to bite again. After about 45 mins or so it happens. Katie's rod drops down and she jumps on the rod and swings home and makes the connection with the fish. The weight of the fish really caught her off guard though and it knocked this little 5'2" girl off of her balance and she fell to the ground. She kept hold of the rod though and the tension on it. I looked when she fell though and the rod popped, fish was gone. Reeled the gear in, leader snapped. Man twice in one day my leader line has gone bad, time to throw that crap away and upgrade.
Rods back out and we tried to get maybe one more shot at one before sundown. We fished until 1700 for the next tide switch, saw tons of marks on the graph, but nothing more then just a few little nibbles. Ended the day without getting our last devil fish, but so happy that we got two keepers and a shaker. Got back to the house and got em cleaned up and packaged up.

Elijah's keeper at 43 inches.

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A sturgeon virgin no more.

Two happy fisherman here.

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All of our sturgeon came on straight roe. Water temp was 54 and all of our fish were caught during the during the incoming. Got two tags left, would like to fill out one more before the end of the year. Hopefully I'll be back out soon.

Till next time
Mark

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