New Year, New Post, New Direction?

Todays post is the first one on here in a year, it hasn’t been because of a lack of fishing. I can say my passion for writing blog post has come and gone and come back through out the years. But it didn’t help when about a half a year ago my laptop crapped out on me and not even a week later the email address I’d been using for around thirteen years got hacked, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to recover it. That really pissed me off and I stopped spending as much time on the net. I wasn’t sure if id even be able to get back on here and post.

The picture above was taken last summer during my first backpacking journey, a friend and I hiked 23 miles around beautiful Waldo Lake and this was one of the many small unnamed lakes that surround Waldo. Hiking was just one of the fun things I got into last year and hopefully ill be able to share more of the fun stuff iv been up to in the past and future!

Cheers from a Willamette Valley reservoir on Christmas day, the fish didn’t cooperate for us but we did find some nice rocks.

Tight Lines!

 

B-Day Camping Trip 2014

One of my newest traditions has been to go camping on my birthday or the weekend of it. It’s a great time of the year to camp, the seasons have definitely changed to fall with the colors and cooler temperatures. It is also around the time I switch over from bass to trout fishing, and in particular brown trout on this trip. Me and my friend arrived to the campground an hour or before sun down, which left us enough daylight to build our tents and to get a fire going.

We fished pretty hard Thursday. We both got skunked, but we were fishing in the bright sun and the water is really cold and clear so the fish were real spookish. We didn’t fish the morning or evening bite Thursday… another excuse for the skunking that day. We did do some sight seeing though. My friend hadn’t been through this area much before, there’s lots to see around this part of Oregon. Rivers, lakes, forebays, hot springs and waterfalls!

The next day we got on the road and decided to skip the lake and fish one of the forbays for the day and see if our luck would change on a different body of water. I had fished here once before, but just from the bank and had no luck.

This time I had brought my pontoon boat, which I figured would put my odds up a bit. Fishing was still tough like the day before. If we hadn’t kept on seeing some really decent sized fish jump I’m sure we would have moved on a lot sooner. 

I did eventually get a few strikes and landed two little brown trout the first fish from the trip. Not big but felt good to get the skunk off of me! My buddy still went fish-less this day, but we were still having a good time. And his luck would change the next day. 

The next day was actually my B-Day and I woke up feeling quite shitty as we had drank pretty heavily the night before. This day it took us awhile especially me to get around and get on the lake. The two previous mornings the clouds and fog burned off quite early, not too long after the sun had raised. On this morning the clouds were down low and it was misting most of the morning, and when we finally got on the lake we got rained on for a half hour or so.

So without any sun on the water the trout were rising quite a bit and actually biting! We were getting them either trolling or casting spoons and spinners. My friend out fished me this day 8 to 3 if I remember right, we kept the biggest one and split it for dinner. She was quite good, either that or we were quite drunk. Probably both!

The next morning was Sunday, and instead of just packing up and leaving when we got up. We decided to kill off the few beers we had left and go hike along the river and fish some new areas. We didnt land anything but had a couple decent sized trout follow our lures, none the less it was a good way to end the trip! Only bad thing was driving home on the freeway at night, and got into a construction zone, with stop and go traffic. When I just wanted to get home and rest from a crazy B-Day weekend!

Thanks for reading. I think ill start posting more, especially now that I can type with both hands once again.

Tight-Lines!!!

I’m Back!! In More Ways Then One

I’m back to blogging as well as back to catching fish, and skunkings are back too. Had an accident with a slip and slide about a month back, my humerus ended being snapped in half. Wound up getting surgery five days later, the healing process seemed to go quickly and smoothly although im still rehabbing and have trouble doing some stuff still. But I can fish!!! Went bank fishing for bass a couple of times before the 29th, but on that day I rowed the boat around and managed to land a couple on a black 5″ senko type of worm made by Skirmish Baits. On the Texas rig with no weight.

The first one was no dandy at around a pound but it felt good my first fish in a month. I was fishing open pockets of water along the weed/algae mat and had a couple of bites before hooking into that lil guy. After landing him I rowed about twenty feet over to an open pocket of water that was right along the bush line which is also one my favorite spots of the pond and I refer to it as the honey hole. After a few casts I felt that familiar feeling of pressure on the line that only means one thing. Soon after setting the hook I knew I had one of the better sized fish on, and I had about of 10-15 feet of weed mat in between me and the bass. This wasn’t ideal as I was using a flimsy spinning rod that is older than me along with 8lb mono.At first things were going smoothly, I had enough pressure on the fish that it couldn’t go deep into the bushes and was also enough pressure to pull me closer to it through the weed mat. The bass swam back and forth along the bush then she wised up and headed toward me and the weed mat. At that point I thought it was over as I couldn’t keep the pressure that it takes to keep them pinned to the hook.

Some how I managed to keep the hook stuck into this bass while I rowed over to it and hand lined it while removing weeds from the line, the hook wasn’t even stuck very well to the lip as the hook came out real easily. Don’t know how I didn’t lose this one.

Same fish different photo. It was a dandy in my book coming in around four or five pounds so I took a few pictures before letting her go on her merry way. Always practice catch & release for these big bass especially if you want a fishery that will continue to have nice fish to catch over an over again. As always tight lines, and thanks for reading!!

Christmas Day 2013 Fishing Trip

This is another trip from my back log, got quite a few more that ill get to.

Christmas to me is just like any other day of the year. Also my family has celebrated the holiday on Christmas Eve for many years so me leaving to go fish on X-Mas day was no big deal. Me and my friend Ted decided to fish a small river that feeds into a near by reservoir in the Eugene area. This was my first time fishing here and the first time Ted fished here in many years. This section of river is very cool especially at the level we floated it at, we could row up and down steam of where we put in at without any difficulty. And not long after we put in I had caught a nice little trout on a Rapala.

The trout on this stream are real beauties, nice and scrappy too, that’s a wild trout for ya. I caught a few on this day all on  that Rapala and sent them all back on their merry way. Ted landed a couple as well think he got them on a Thomas Buoyant Spoon. It’s a real interesting piece of water that I definitely want to come back to in the summer and see if I can’t pull some bass out of here.

This river is in a metropolitan area even though the pictures look like it may suggest different. It’s also not stocked at all with any type of fish, so for those two reasons I’m not disclosing the name of the water. Would hate to see see this river fished out and full of people. We explored quite a bit of water and some of it we had to go over logs, and even portaged once. But we did get to one point of the river where we could go no further. A big ole log jam, we probably could of gone around if put in some work and got out on some private property. But that wasn’t worth it for us, so we turned around.

As always thanks for reading and tight lines!

Colby Pearson – Trick Cast

Trokar hooks which is part of Eagle Claw is doing a competition right now having people post videos online of them self’s doing trick shots with a fishing rod. My good friend and fishing buddy Colby Pearson put together a video that is awesome, sick, dope, out of this world etc etc. In other words it’s pretty dang cool!!!! Iv seen him make some great cast’s just fishing along aside of him but one day we stopped at a pond after a day of fishing and seen him do a cast that is indescribable. If I said the cast he made that day was epic I would be calling it short. But anyways that cast’s wasn’t part of this video but even without it, I can see my friend winning this competition. Enjoy the video. And good luck to Colby!

As always thanks for reading and watching the videos. Tight Lines!

Bass fishing on the 5th of July

Friday July 5th I met up with my good friends and fishing pals Ted, and Ben to float and fish the Calapooia River in the morning. We floated the river once last year and we had a good time and decided it was time to revisit the small river. This river runs through mainly private farm land so access is very limited, so id imagine there isnt much fishing pressure. It wouldn’t be surpring to hear dueling banjos while floating down this little piece of water.  There’s all sorts of fish that reside in the river but we were mainly after the Small Mouth Bass, but it would be fun to just use night crawlers and see what you come up with. Fishing could of been better but was still fun on the river this day!

On the way home from the river I decided to stop at my friends house and do some fishing in his back yard pond. My friends son Jesse was also out there and he had a decent bite that day on a top water frog. Was pretty fun watching that frog get hammered in the weed mat. It was a good bass right around five pounds. I caught one at the pond as well but it wasnt picture worthy. 

As always thanks for reading and tight lines. 

First Fishing Trip Of 2014 – Blue River Reservoir

This was the first time I fished in the new year and the second time Iv fished this lake, the first time being spring time last year.  We got to the lake around 7:30am and our friend Jon showed up not long after. The lake is really drawn down as reservoirs usually are this time of year but I think the lack of rain and snow we’ve experienced has an effect on the levels too. Fishing wasnt near as good as I thought it would of been, it’s stocked quite heavily and during the spring and it’s hard not to catch them then. 

I wound up catching four and missed a few other bites, but it did take about an hour before having a bite and it was the first one out of the three of us. After releasing my first one the bite died again, it took about another hour before I landed another. This one was decent for a stocker rainbow trout probably a hold over at 13″. I was getting my fish on a Thomas Buoyant Lure and a Countdown Rapala in blue and white. Five of my seven bites came on the Rapala and I had it and the spoon in the water just as much. I fortunately had much more luck then my two friends who were fishing with me, Jon got the skunk and Ted ended up with one.  Still a fun day with friends even if the fishing wasnt as good as we expected it to be.

As always thanks for reading and tight lines! 

First Steelhead And Only Steelhead of 2012!

Well I cant say I pursued Steelhead or Salmon much last year or even this year, although I did land a open seat on the Columbia River last year and managed to catch my first Columbia URB (Up River Bright) Fall Chinook. I did fish for Steelhead probably a handful of times during the summer but most were while I was floating in the river in my pontoon. Still getting the hang of river fishing, especially for these tricky anadromous fish.

12-28-2012 : I met up with Oregon Fishing Forum member hawgcaller aka Patrick. We met up in Eugene a couple hours before sunrise to head to the North Fork Alsea. This was my first ever time to this river and second or third time fishing for Winter Steelhead that season. Our first stop was the hatchery and I was kinda disappointed with all the people there, they were just standing around bull shitting because it was still too early too fish. We wound up getting all of our stuff together and walking down the road in the dark to a spot Patrick had seen last time he was there. Which turned out to be a bad idea. We fished for a half hour or so when an older gentleman approached us told us we need permission and a badge to fish the water we were in. Patrick gave him the explanation that we were below the high water so there for we weren’t trespassing on anyone’s property. The old man wasn’t having it though so we packed up and left before it became a situation. 

So after that we pretty much drove around looking for a place to wet a line that didn’t have a whole bunch of people around. We found a spot that we thought looked fishy and there was just one guy in the hole below us. Patrick was using various things, bobber and jigs and bobber and eggs were the main thing, along with drift fishing and throwing hardware. Me on the other hand stick to two techniques while steelhead fishing usually. Spoons and Spinners. And on this day the Spinner came through for me, on a locally made spinner Knd Custom Tackle Sprocket Spinner I think it was the nickle blade with a purple body, but it may of been a blue body too haha. This was our only fish of the day which was fine by me, steelhead fishing to me is more about the adventure then actually catching one, like they say catching is a bonus. It was cool catching a steelhead in such a small river, I’m used The Rogue River where you cast what seems like like 50yds plus out and let the river work the spoon for you. Here it’s a much different game and with a whole lot more anglers, probably a fishery ill only do a few times during the season just because of all the pressure. 

 

The video is started when the fight is pretty much over. Patrick had his camera on him and got 10 seconds of video then his battery died so he found my camera in the tackle bag and started filming. Almost didn’t post the video because of how I fumbled the steelhead back into the river but then some how managed to grab it again so I could get my picture with it. Well anyways hope to hook at least one more in the upcoming season which starts on the 1st of December. Thanks for reading and Tight Lines! 

Halloween at Dorena Reservoir

Woke up in the early hours on Halloween to fish at a local reservoir to us in Eugene area, with my friend Ted. The water is drawn down right now but the boat ramp is still very accessible as of then. Especially for us since we were in pontoons, but the lake this day also had two other boats on the water. We were getting pretty consistent bites with spoons and my first fish was actually a hard fighting cuttie. I have the two rod endorsement so along with a spoon I ran a plug. I ran a hot shot for awhile with no takes so I put on a small crayfish color mini fat rap and trolled that around. I thought about changing that plug out on more then a couple occasions, mostly because it wasn’t a floating plug and I wasn’t sure how far it was diving. I kept with and finally got hit, and when it did I thought my rod was snagged then I seen the fish come up and jump a time or two. Me and Ted both seen it was a good one then, and I had him come over to me and net it since I didn’t bring one. And luckily I did because right after it hit the net the plug came right out. It was a real nice 16″ hold over.

After that we found the the channel and tried to go up in it, turned out most of it had no depth to it so we left. On the way out my rod got buried and I caught another nice hold over on a spoon 17″ and fat with a tiny hook jaw. This one came on a Thomas Buoyant Spoon in silver, I was just running one rod at the time too because of the depth. 

After that fish we kept on getting the average pellet heads on spoons. And there were quite a few fish hanging around the boat ramp, even a hatch when we were packing up. I wound up breaking off a trout on the mini fat rap, looked to be another good fish but broke my line after jumping. Damn 4lb mono!! I also wound up catching a nice 13″ stocker on the frog pattern hot shot, then not long after broke it off on a fish too. Was a good day of trout fishing as far as im concerned even with the lost tackle. Ted brought home a few small stockers, he caught plenty but no hold overs. 

As always, Tight Lines! And thanks for reading. 

Cougar Reservoir – November 8-9th

Finally made my way up to Cougar Reservoir, which is an impoundment of the South Fork Mckenzie River. The lake this time of the year is hardly used by fishermen as the water is drawn to make room for winter storm water. So the boat ramps are high and dry and pretty much useless until the lake get’s some more water coming in. This makes for good fishing especially if you’re like me and enjoy not having to fish next to a whole bunch of other people. 

Made the trek this day with my friend Ted and we found a cool primitive camping spot that was on the backside of the lake.. This spot was also nice because there was an old road carved into the muddy hillside so it made carrying out pontoons to the lake a bit easier. The weather was pretty decent after we got on the water and alot of fish were surfacing near the inlet. So after some conversation we decided to camp here for a couple nights. I stayed at the lake and fished while Ted drove to town and got his camping gear and food and beer for us. 

The camping was fun, but the fishing was a little disappointing. We caught plenty of fish, but most were real small landlocked Chinook Salmon. This lake isnt stocked with rainbow trout or anything other then the Chinooks, but none of the chinooks I caught were fin clipped, so i’m not really sure what the deal is. Caught a couple cutthroats that I let go, but was really hoping to catch my first bull trout. 

The Chinooks were hitting just about everything I used. Hot Shots, Countdown Rapala, Thomas Buoyant Spoons, were the main lures I used and was getting the little bastards on. Other then the semi disappointing fishing the scenery was really nice. The lake is super deep and steep and has some really cool rock features you can see when the lake is drawn down like it is right now. The lake also offers a hot spring which we camped on the other side of the lake from. From what we seen the hot springs is a very popular place especially on the weekend, the parking lot was packed! If it was’nt so popular I would of went over and scoped it out. 

All and all it was a fun trip seeing and fishing a new area to me.

Thanks for reading and tight lines!