Nailed Bass 20 Inches and Better

Today was a first for me. Three bass 20 inches and better. Two of them hit that mark and my last bass of the evening was 20 3/4 inches. The first bass I caught was about 18 inches. Brian caught six, several of his nearly 20 inches. They whomp Chatterbaits just as if they intend to kill prey on the spot. Unlike last time on the lake, we caught a lot of the bass out in the open water. Oddly, we caught no pickerel, though twice pickerel followed my Chatterbait to the boat. 

Wind was heavy, so we used an anchor. Otherwise, we did work our way towards the back of the lake, but got about halfway there. I've paddled beyond the island many times, though I've never got all the way into the back, as Brian once told me he's done. Today, we got in between the island and shore where it was calm. We've tried this spot many times, usually getting skunked, although once I caught an 18-incher and another time, my son caught a 25-inch pickerel. 

Today it seemed we'd get skunked, since it was taking a while before anything happened. When I felt weight on the line tied to an unweighted Chomper's worm, I was uncertain at first if it was weeds or a bass, but I set the hook into my second 20-incher. I've spent years perfecting my casting with unweighted worms, and though I was a little rusty today, I still managed to get the worm right on target frequently. It's important to lay it down gently so it sort of slips into the water and right next to submerged brush. You don't want it actually in the stuff so it doesn't sink to bottom, but you can knock wood, so long as that worm does drop on down. It's the same when working weeds, but it's always testy. Many casts result in weeds blocking that passage to the bottom, so a little pull or two might be all you need until you make a better cast that results in the worm dropping slowly all the way down.

Brian soon caught a bass about the same length on a Chatterbait, and then I hooked another big bass on the same worm, the one that nearly measured 21 inches, a very hard-fighting fish. The drag was squealing, but I had forced the fish away from the sticks and branches with some diameter to them. Brian caught yet another bass nearly 20 inches that had peculiar black spots and a very badly damaged caudal fin.

Altogether, we might have fished three hours, catching 10 and losing only a couple, though a few hits were missed. "These bass are especially acrobatic," Brian said. Each one of them leapt at least once, and to see a bass over 20 inches go airborne is something I would've caught on my GoPro, but memory will just have to serve instead.

Maybe there'll be another time when I have the thing on my head and get the camera rolling in time.  

Chatterbait Bass and Pickerel

 

Fair Amount of Trout in the River

Baby Ducks, No Mother

I noticed right off that the river's running a little high and not so clear. I began fishing a little downstream from my favorite position, not as far down as where I caught three last week, since the situation had changed. Got hit on the first cast & the second, hooked up on the third, nice rainbow nearly 12 inches. No more hits, so I figured I caught the one trout. I tried upstream, where I got hit once, and down where nothing happened this week. 

Then I went to another spot around tree trunks separating it from where I just had fished. I caught another. Nothing more happened besides my catching a little rock bass, which reminded me how fun they were when I was very young. I thought of how crowded the river was after stocking yesterday. Had seen the cars parked while riding by. 

Next spot. I saw some trout swim around the drifting egg and got hit once. But when I say "hit," I mean light taps are all I got today. Evidently, I thought, the trout got fed plenty yesterday.

In any event, at my final stop, I saw quite a few trout. This was closest to where I believe they actually stock. At least, it used to be they stocked there and trout swam upstream to where I like best to stand. The trout, except for two that turned on my offering without striking, ignored my eggs.

It was buggy. Looked like small mayflies. Other bugs. But the only fish rising, apparently, were sunnies and rock bass, though these two species, I noticed, were pretty persistent bug snatchers today.

Three at the Zoo

 

Stationed at my favorite Zoo spot & couldn't bring up a bite. Went upstream a bit & detected the subtlest of takes. Egg gone. A few casts later, an obvious take, but no hook set. A few more casts and I was ready to position further downstream. A guy and gal had sat there, casting rigs with tiny BB split shots, getting no hits. 

I soon felt an almost undetectable blip. Egg gone. I was using one-pound test, a tiny size 18 snap, a size 14 hook. Able to cast an egg wherever I wanted it to go. And I found a few trout in a little belly of the current. Identical casts yielded three trout. 

I released each of them. They swam off as if unaffected. Then some guy stopped by to watch me finish my last two casts; we talked variously about fishing for  10 minutes, and I then I went home. 

Afternoon on the Lake: Pickerel, Bass, Crappie, Panfish

A new guest went to the lake with Brian Cronk and I, Joe Santiago. The day began with Brian and I patching a hole in the squareback canoe, then loading my tippy Great Canadian onto my Honda Civic. Joe and Brian would go out in Brian's friend Sam's canoe. In the wind, I would have trouble pointing mine where to go, since the bow lifted and acted like a sail. Brian hollered out for me to relax, and while in the heat of my frustration it seemed futile advice, a better part of me was telling me he's probably right. Of course he was. I got back against the wind OK, but it took some strategy. 

Brian caught the nice pickerel in the photo. Joe caught a lot of crappie and panfish on a jig, a bass, and a nice pickerel. The 10-inch sunfish was an especially nice catch. Brian also caught a bass, a 13 1/2-inch crappie, and a yellow perch on a Chatterbait.

I used a Chatterbait until I was tired of it. It's a big, heavy lure that puts a demand on muscle from the moment you go into the swing of a cast. It caught me a 21-inch pickerel, 18-inch bass, 16-inch bass. But my favorite way to bass fish is wormin'. I switched to an eight-inch Chompers and caught a 19- or 19 1/2-inch bass from under the overhang of a tree. Also lost a crappie of 13 or 14 inches at the side of the canoe. That fish took the big (unweighted) worm a moment after I let it touch down softly next to one of the twigs of brush in maybe five feet of water. That's crappie style.

I had started out by casting the shoreline, and all of my fish came from within four or five yards of the bank. I did miss a terrific hit well out from shore but over a flat only a couple of feet deep. I also lost a very nice fish a few yards from shore while fishing the Chatterbait.

We were out there not four hours. Brian had said we'd fish only a couple. The tippy canoe has never capsized. Knock wood for me.

 

East Fork San Gabriel River Rainbow Trout

Word online is that the West Fork San Gabriel River has the trout, but after recent fires, access is closed. We saw that trout do get caught on the East Fork and began making plans. 

We stayed in San Clemente, about a half hour south of where our son, Matt, lives in Costa Mesa. The San Gabriel Mountains are fairly close to Los Angeles, part of the Angeles National Forest. Trish picked up on our uncertainty about going there, and after doing some searching on her phone, came up with Davy's Locker charter for only $70.00 apiece, along with six other clients. Yellowtail, sheepshead, other species. But we had paid extra to check as baggage a rod case holding fly rods. I wasn't going to sell out on my original intention.

Good thing. The mountains are big, beautiful, and bountiful when it comes to trout. Matt cast first, when we felt astonished to see his indicator float jerk forward, unmistakably a hit. He used his nine-foot five weight, which would prove effective. I used my six-foot two weight. We had beadhead pheasant tails and hare's ears, but I also had a couple of size 16 Surveyors with red tails and silver heads. I felt drawn to trying them instead. New Jersey fly angler Jesse Sullivan gave me a whole slew of Surveyors and Red Darts a few years ago. Flies he tied himself. I felt privileged to try a couple on the West Coast.

Temperatures might have hit 70. The water was chilly but not bone cold. Matt had waders but was short on wading boots, so he stuffed his boot feet neoprene into hiking boots. A fit too tight. He ended up wet-wading and never seemed to mind the chill. 

All of our trout were small. Either wild or native rainbows, most of them were about five inches long, the biggest seven inches, though a nine-incher did follow after one of the small ones I hooked. We caught 10 of them while taking our time. I did a lot of photography, besides. Trish relaxed, reading a novel. Matt noticed a couple of splash rises and tied on a dry fly, catching a couple and missing other hits. He sought me out  to say so, and so I tied on a parachute Adams, size 14, and began getting hit repeatedly. I missed more than 20 and never hooked one of the fish.  

There are opportunities in California for big trout, particularly east of the Sierras, though we weren't up for nine hours or more of driving at the risk of traveling snow-covered roads, perhaps. The little ones continued to astonish us with their eagerness. Pretty fish to see as we quickly released them from barbless hooks to shimmy back out of sight. The water is as clear as any swimming pool, but you don't see any trout until they flash at what they're offered.

 

Wild and Native

If I Were an Atlas Mike's Salesman

Sorry about the out-of-focus photo. Didn't have time to remedy. Had been over at Round Valley shooting in manual and forgot to switch back. 

Had a fun half hour over at the Zoo, catching and releasing 10 rainbows upstream there from the bridge in view where I believe all are stocked. Came home and told my wife I should be a salesman for Atlas Mike's. I must have converted three guys, and if I worked at it, I could have converted a whole lot more. 

Referencing yesterday, two BB shot are a LOT of weight for microlight. That river MOVED. You can see there was some movement here, too, but one little snap, one little snap swivel was all the weight required, to have used any more than that would have ruined the drift. 

I wouldn't have caught 10 trout. 

Used the microlight rod I built in 2019 today. One-pound test monofilament. 

Salmon Eggs: An Oily, Smelly, Visceral Approach to Trout

I checked on my local river Monday and found it had come down, clarified pretty well. Called Mark Licht and began making plans for this afternoon. We found the river up his way running high and very fast, the clarity acceptable but not as clear as it usually is. 

Mark and I each had trout on our first casts. Naturally, we had instantly become suckers for hope, but had we enjoyed fast action at that first spot for the full four hours we had at our disposal, the day never would have developed through overcoming some obstacles.

Mark did catch three or four where we began many hundreds of yards from the stocking point. I missed a couple of hits. We mostly fished along a seam about 75 feet long. All of Mark's trout came from that edge, as well as the one I had on and  lost after it took several runs. I used two-pound test. An 11-incher in that current... 

One of my hits came when I drifted an egg through the fast water. Soon, I weighted the line with a BB split shot after Mark offered me one. I declined and opened my own pack. I had been managing the seam OK with a snap and a snap-swivel for weight. 

We walked upstream a good way. I fished another seam, and after Mark caught another trout and came upstream to where I stood, I tried to cast my salmon egg to the column of slow water near the opposite bank that he pointed out to me. He went back downstream and caught two more. It seemed to become obvious that his centerpin outfit was advantageous given the high water. He can work his float along an entire seam and let the current take it behind rocks, and so on.  I wasn't cooked, though. I still had plenty of interest in the limits of my microlight tackle against the heavy flow.

We drove to a bridge and no trout seemed to be there. We both felt the sneaking suspicion that it hadn't been stocked.

We moved on to our last spot, which is where it all came together for me. I weighted the line with an additional split shot and cast into the fast water, figuring that trout hugging bottom underneath where flow is slower might appreciate an egg moving slower, too. I did have to retie a few times, and had left my leader wallet at home, though I had a pack of the size 14 baitholder hooks I use. I started hooking up, and by the time we had to leave, which seemed to come pretty quickly, I understood that the fast water surely held a lot more trout than just the four I caught, the one I fought and lost, and the several hits I missed. I didn't quite catch up to Mark, but I closed the gap considerably. 

I enjoy fishing salmon eggs. It's an oily, smelly, visceral approach to trout amounting to a "fishy" quality, in fact. I did bring along my two-weight fly rod, but once I hooked up on that first cast, there was no turning back. I'll probably always be dual in that way. A bait fisherman who likes to fly fish when that makes sense. But stockers are a paradox. They're artificially raised, and yet using smelly, oily bait for them is more down-to-earth than the fly fishing I do for wild trout.

It's always interesting to watch Mark center-pinning. His big eggs sacks were interesting to see used on little stockers, too. I'm not interested in investing, but I avidly appreciate how it works for him. 

Five Years Ago