American River Shad 5/21

Went out today to chase some more silver bullets on the AR. Arrived at my honey hole at Rossmoor at 0930 to see how the morning bite was. Arrived to see a few friends of friends I knew in the honey hole. Cool to have some company to fish with. They were just tieing their gear on right as I showed up so we all started the same time. Started off pretty slow but I managed to hook into a decent female 20 mins in.

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Couple cast later I got one small enough for bait so I rigged him up and sent him back out to hopefully bring me something bigger.

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While I did that the guys around me Brian and Kyle start hooking up.

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Brian with his first of the day.

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Kyle hooked up

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Kyle's fish.

After about a 45 min soak with my live shad I gave that up and switched back over to fishing for shad to get some bendo going.

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Got this other nice sized female.

I decided to take a lunch break around 1200. Went to go hang out with the girl friend a bit and get some food for a while. Back on the water around 1500. Walked down with my friend Adam and right away Adam is hooking up.

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I noticed I'm dragging bottom a lot more now then I was in the morning. Seemed like the flows went down on me or something, but it was messing with my drift and I had a hard time sitting in the right slot to get hooked up. Wasn't long before Adam got a good bait sized fish and he let me have that one for bait so out he went. Determination is gonna pay off for me sooner or later. Adam continued to slay while I was soaking my shad.

Around 1700 the party of my cousins arrived.

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It got crowded quick. Too crowded for Adam so he took off to fish another day. Luckily all real friendly guys and familiar people I've fished with here in years past. By 1800 I counted over 15 people fishing the stretch of water though, word is out.

Bite was fairly consistent throughout the evening and wasn't long before a stringer was getting full.

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Some bendo here.

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and a few shad there.

Something new for me. While I was fishing my live shad there was a moment where my line went dead slack, I didn't feel any weight on it at all. I got really excited thinking a Striper picked my shad up and was just going up river with it. I let it go for a while just picking up my slack as it came up. After a bit though I heard someone down river yell I got someones line. I looked and my shad that has a hook in his face and his back hit his jig and he landed my fish. Absolutely could not believe that only did this fish continue to feed while it had a hook through him, but he still went and hit another fisherman's jig. Absolutely incredible, I couldn't believe it.

After an hour or so of that I dropped trying to Stripers and went for shad, plus with so many people there were a lot of lines in the water and it was getting to close having too many issues with tangling up with other fisherman. The bite stayed consistent throughout the evening. Never really was any better at this time or that time. Just when a school came though people caught fish. I stayed until 2030 and ended my total day with landing about 12 shad or so with losing half that and missing who knows how many. Pack up my crap and a bit of some other people's and took off for home.

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Sorry for the blurry picture but if you can't tell its a load of plastic bottles and some other random garbage. Good day out on the water. I haven't seen any Striper activity in the evening at all which is weird. Hopefully they'll show up soon or I'll have to look for some greener pastures. Till then Shad still pull hard!

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

Good Bass Afternoon New Melones 4/30/12

Went out to New Melones this afternoon with my dad to try for a little bit of bass action today. I launched my float tube and kicked around the shoreline throwing texas rigged pro senko's and robo worms. My dad bought himself a new inflatable kayak to try out as well. Poor old man flipped in it twice trying to get it haha.

Just working the shoreline dragging worms around I end up getting the skunk off immediately.



Nothing to get all that excited about lol.

Needless to say though I found some better fish after a while.



And this is how the rest of my afternoon went.









picked up my last fish and fifth fish around 1830 right as the wind started picking up.



With the coming wind and setting sun I paddled my way back to the ramp to call it a day. Not a bad way to spend a quick afternoon.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

Amador Coming Up 3/23/12

With the recent rains we've been having I've been wanting to check out how Amador is looking with the water level on the rise. All of that water coming into the lake I could only think of one thing, and that was Jackson Creek. On the way I noticed the water clarity is terrible. Only maybe a foot and a half maybe 2ft. On they way to Jackson I tried trolling grubs and a wooly bugger on my fly rod. Deni got one hit on a Fire Tiger grub, but that was it. When we got back into the creek the water cleared up to crystal clear water.

If anyone goes back here be careful there was lots of this around.

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Poison Oak everywhere man. Not fun to deal with.

In the creek I saw several fish swimming around, but man were they skiddish. I tossed a fly around for a while and Deni threw a jig. I had one hit and we both had a few chasers, but fish weren't committing. I knew I could get something to hit, but I needed something else. I decided to try tossing a pink power worm off of the fly rod. Trout just can't resist it man. I tossed it out and before I knew it I just saw a big swirl and my worm was gone. Hooked into my first fish of the day and got the skunk off.

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I ended up losing one more fish here, but that was it. There were fish here, but not very many. With the power worm working I decided to troll that around on my fly rod instead of a fly, with the stained water I figured the brighter the color the better. We made our way to Mountain springs to see how that was doing. On the way my power worm got slammed and I hooked into a pig. After a nice long and fun fight on the fly rod I landed this 9lb beast.

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and he has a tag!!!

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Double score.

We trolled around in mountain springs for one more fish that Deni hooked into on her grub.

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That was it for today. Really slow, but man that one fish made it worth it. Water clarity needs to clear up a bit and once that does I'm sure the trout bite will be back on again.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

Lodi Bike Ride 3/19/12

Had some time before work today and with my new bike I got I've been wanting to check out some local water. Local for me though is 8 miles away. I wanted to check out Lodi Lake and parts of the Moke. 40 min bike ride from my house I got to the Woodbridge dam around 1050. I had heard rumors that people catch shad around here when they are in the system.

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The dam

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My bike.

The water seemed really shallow here, I did see a sucker fish swimming around but nothing else that I could go for. I took off from there to go and check out Lodi Lake. I really had no idea what was in here, besides bass. I figured I would just fan cast a swimbait all over the lake and if there were bass I would get at least one. I just really wanted to explore today more then anything.

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Working the shore line for a bit I manage to get a hit and stick my first fish in Lodi!

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That fish made me so happy, I really wasn't planning on catching much of anything today I just wanted to explore. This fish I thought was defiantly a bonus. I keep working the bank and I get another hit and I stuck a fish that had some shoulders on him.



This guy must have been around 4lbs and sure as heck made my day.

I worked as much bank as I could just slow rolling my swimbait around everywhere talking to people as I went. Lots of people here I noticed fishing for carp and steel head which I thought was pretty cool. I saw one kid with a bucket full of some decent sized sucker fish and I saw one guy land a 20lb carp on a night crawler.

I worked more and more water for one more fish.

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Decided to head home around 1400 with the mind set of a successful day. On my way home right as I passed over the Woodbridge dam I noticed my back tire on my bike went flat. Crap, called my dad and had him come and pick me up. Made it home fine and happy I made the trip down to Lodi. Have to get the bike fixed and try it again soon. I want to try the Moke more for stripers and maybe shad when they come around.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark