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!
Boat Troubles at Fall Creek Reservoir
Well here’s a older report that I never finished and published, will have quite a few more of these. So keep your eye out!
Saturday the 4th of May I fished with TTFishon in his boat and GraphiteZen came along too. These are a couple of cool guys I met on the OregonFishingForum a few years back. The day started out real nice weather wise, a little windy but we didn’t mind that is until… We had motor problems and had to row back to the ramp, as you can see in the video. You can also see in the video a helicopter dunking a bucket for a near by fire that was going on. It sure helped to pass the time as I waited at the boat ramp with the boat. The other guys went into town to get tools to fix the motor. A Hour or two later we go the boat up and running and we managed to get a few trout to the boat. Only one being a hold over. But was still a great day on the water with some awesome company.
Thanks for reading/watching the video, and as always, Tight Lines!!!
Swimbait Bass Sept. 21st!
Going to start blogging once again, yeah I know… lol. I figured Ill start back in with my latest outing. My friend Dave called me up to have me come out and help him get fire wood cut and stacked for the winter coming up. So I sweated my ass off for a couple hours then we decided to head out back to the little pond on his property. The weather lately has been quite damp so instead of walking in the mud we had his grandson give us a ride on the quad to the pond, pretty fun way to get there! I had been fishing a spot on the bank for five minutes or so and Dave and his grandson just pulled up on the quad and were getting ready to fish. I started telling them the fish must be on the other side of the pond, and said I was about to head over there and try. Not long after a nice one just hammered my swimbait 10 feet from the end of the retrieve! Lots of fun! I dont have working scale right now but id say its right around 5lbs, good one for Oregon!
Thanks for reading, and Tight Lines!
May 29th Bass Video
Long time no post, not that anyone cares. This video is now a little over a month old, iv done a lot of fishing since then but I havent been doing any recording via video. Iv taken a picture here and there since this video, nothing spectacular but im enjoying my time fishing, as you should be if your reading this.
All six bass from the video were caught on a Reactions Innovation Kinky Beaver soft plastic bait texas rigged with a bullet weight. My buddy Patrick gave me these baits earlier this year, and I must say they are killer baits!! Real fun to fish and they get the bass to bite real good!
As always thanks for reading and Tight Lines!
Couple Recent Bass Fishing Videos
Well I haven’t been in the blogging mood very much lately, iv still been fishing just haven’t taken the time to write about it. Guess that’s the cool thing about video, the words aren’t as important.
The first two clips and picture on this video were from April 7th fished with my buddy and his grandson. The rest of the clips and pictures are all from various trips earlier in the year.
This video was filmed April 16th in my buddies pond. I caught five dinks that day and got four on video.
BTW both songs have hiphop music playing so you were warned!
Tight Lines!
HUGE Landlocked Chinook!
February 19th was a Tuesday, and my good friend Ted invited me out on his boat to go fishing along with one of our other buddies but he prefers to remain anonymous. It turned out to be a EPIC fish day! We went to Green Peter Reservoir just hoping to catch some decent hold over Rainbows and perhaps some Kokanee since it was early in the season. We had none of the fancy gear like a fish finder, down riggers, electric motors, lead core line. Guess we didn’t need any of that stuff to catch a very memorable fish. We had been trolling around for about an hour or so without any bites so I threw something out there that is sort of out of the ordinary for lake fishing, a Lindy River Rocker plug. Not too long after we were coming up upon a point, and I noticed the tip of my rod that was leaning against the boat bounce a couple times a tell-tale sign of a bite. I immediately pick the rod and and feel something heavy and thought snag, until I felt a couple head shakes and began to tell Ted to cut the motor.
Until I saw this fish in the water I thought I had a real decent rainbow on, that is up until I got the fish close to the boat for the first time. There is such good clarity at this lake I could see the fish about 15-20 feet down just thrashing, and that was when I knew I had something BIG on, that was also when I told our buddy to get my video camera out. I knew it was gonna be a fight. I was using a 4’8″ Ultra Lite rod rated for 4-6lb line, and I was using some cheap 4lb mono that actually had a knot or two in the line but I didn’t take the time to re tie. As soon as the video starts you can hear the drag peeling, pretty sure it was right after the fish seen the boat for the first time. If your offended by foul language or have children then id advise you not to watch or mute it, we were some pretty dang excited anglers!
The fish is a land locked Chinook Salmon and measured out to 30″ we didn’t weigh it or get a girth measurement but id say it was around ten pounds from just holding it. If you watched the video you can see that we’ll have to start bringing a bigger net with us. Got pretty damn lucky on the second attempt with the net looked as if the hook almost got knocked off. Luckily Ted improvised and was able to tail the fish into the boat!
The big nook sure made the trip worth it. Only one other fish was caught a nice 16″ rainbow by Ted on a Thomas spoon. In the next day or two Ted sent the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife an email asking some questions about this fish. This is quoting the Biologist: “Thanks for getting in touch with us about this fish. I saw the picture and it is pretty impressive. This fish is obviously a survivor from an experimental release that was done back in 2003 or 2004 to see whether Chinook would spawn successfully above Green Peter, but it was never intended to be a re-introduction because downstream passage through the dam has such poor survival. Some spawning did occur and this fish is now a second generation fish, that is using the reservoir as its “ocean”. We call these populations “adfluvial” because the newly hatched juveniles rear for a while in the river and then migrate down to a freshwater lake for a few years and can get very large. Once they have reached spawning age, which for Chinook can be 3-6 years, they migrate back up the rivers to spawn and die.”
It’s almost hard to believe that fish came out of a lake. Looks like a ocean bright Spring Chinook. Dont know if Ill ever get a land locked Salmon that size ever again. Fish of a life time? Maybe so.
Figured Id get a picture of the guy that made this whole fish/trip possible. The captain of the Newt, Ted aka TTFishon. Thanks again buddy for having me along on such a fun day! It’s days like this that make fishing really awesome and gets me coming back. The joy of the unexpected whether its an awesome fish or just plain fun times with friends or both.
Thanks for reading and as always Tight Lines!!
Bass Are Starting To Bite!!
Well Bass season has come here in Oregon, at least for now with the nice weather. I was able to get my first two bass of the year last Friday March 8th at a local Eugene area public pond. If this area wasn’t so populated id let the cat out of the bag as to where we were fishing. It is good though to have public places that have decent fishing and aren’t beat to death by other anglers.
Friday was a swimbait type of day for me not only was it the first bass of the year for me but also my first bass on a swimbait. Although the first one was a dink.( If you click the above picture you can see the bait) The bait is 5.5″ So I’m pretty sure so that bass is only about 13″ It sure had eyes bigger then its stomach. The second fish of the day came shortly after, on the same bait. It was a tad bigger but not the monster we were looking for. My buddy Dave got skunked but he spent a lot of the time on the oars trying to position me into good casting distance along the banks.
The next day was another surprisingly nice March day and I had a couple hours to blow and found myself at my buddy Dave’s private pond he has in his back yard. Iv fished this piece of water at least a hand full of times already this year each time with out any luck. Since this pond is in Dave’s back yard hes been out there probably twice as much with out any luck either. But that all changed Saturday. I had some confidence in me since the day before I got my first ditch pickles of the year, so I made a bet with Dave soon after we had the boat in the water. I told him ” first one to get a bass to the boat out of this pond wins $5.00. Not twenty minutes later and about half way around the pond I got got the first one from the pond on a wacky rig Yum Dinger in Melon Pie color.
The next day, Sunday, Dave and myself went back to the public pond that i’m keeping undisclosed. We got there around 7 am and the air temp was around 33 degrees which made fishing not so fun. Also turned the bite off I think, we both got skunked that day but our buddy was there later in the day and reported a 6lber was caught and he had some luck as well. Guess we left before the bite turned on.
A couple of days later me and another buddy Ted went out there again, this time in his boat. Got there around noon, and not too long after I got the fish above on a wacky rig worm. I got another one on the same rig on the other end of the lake, but only a 1lber. Still fun to catch bass this early in the year even if they are dinks aka small fish.
Ted didn’t get on the board until after I caught my two and after I talked a little shit. He wound up catching two but both were dinks, and smaller then the fish I got. Guess I should of made another bet, ha. Fish or no fish it’s always a good time fishing with company like Ted and Dave. Here’s to more early season bass and good times! Thanks for reading. Tight Lines!
Good Story (Colby Pearson)
This story is brought to you by my good friend and trophy bass hunter Colby Pearson. This young man has more passion for bass fishing then anyone iv ever met. In the Northwest where we live bass fishing isnt quite like other parts of the country, its the step child to Trout, Salmon and Steelhead. I’m not gonna say bass fishing isnt good out here because some places out here is impeccable namely the Umpqua and John Day for Smallies. I’m just gonna get to his story. This fish was caught the beginning of March which is cold water fishing for warm water fish, go figure… lol
All last week I tried to fish, got out Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Something very interesting happens in later Winter/early Spring, in some waters with significant Northern bank access within this state. Fish get shallow. Every February/March for the last few years it seems like the state receives an unusually warm trend for about a week, for many of us, that was last week.
Noting the high on Friday to be in the 60’s, a 10-20 degree difference between most days as of recent, I was on cue for this interesting movement of fish that I’m willing to bet, that most people don’t even know about. I spend Tues & Thurs, observing what I could…Water clarity, quality, movement, what banks received sun and when.
Determining where I needed to be and at what time, I focused my morning waiting above a submerged ledge on Friday. The ledge crests in about 7′, but slopes down to 19-20′, key observations of this ledge included its general position, not only within the reservoir, but in relation to the sun. After an hour I see a fish move up, around 2.5#, I don’t cast at it, but it gives me a restored sense of purpose. The day slowly begins to wind past noon and I adjust my position setting myself on another ledge faced in the opposite corner, NE.
NE corner receives significantly more sun, especially in the noon hours. Like the first spot, I wait hours. Finally around 5pm, I see a black shadow pull up to the crest of the ledge and sit there motionless. Noting this fishes demeanor and activity level, I know it is simply up to sun and progress digesting faster. Watching this fish, I pitch to it and it slowly, passively dissipates from view. It was probably an 8+lbr.
When trophy hunting in the Winter, seeing your quarry can be a dead give away if you can interpret that fishes future movements in relation to coming/going weather patterns.
Many anglers would have thought they had blown their shot right then and there. I get home and get ready for the next day, I know that fish is entirely catch-able and will make one of two moves- it would either push down the ledge positioning itself immediately below on structure elements in the general vicinity, or it would push up even further given ample weather Saturday.
Saturday morning I arrive, see nothing in a significant amount of time, I wait all day.
Finally slightly before I saw the fish the day prior, I see a fish accompanied by two smaller but respectable fish (4&5lbs). The fish was seen two days in a row during the same time frame, a valuable observation shedding light to the hypothesis, that trophy fish are active during specific windows thru-ought the day. Ironic the fish was seen two days in a row during the same time frame?
Judging that fishes activity level I see its still super lethargic and just hovering slowly like a ghost in the late afternoon sun. I back off, rig and come back to watch. Finally as the day dwindles and I can barely see in the water, the fish moves, slightly faster than previously noted and toward a visible cover element, and ambush point via a point.
Seeing that finally the fish has shifted into a neutral mood, my presentation comes into play. Recognize that fish fish is not in a feeding or aggressive mood, but as the angler I see its my opportunity to present my bait in a manner that appeals to the bass’ senses and predatory habits I visualize that bass’ path toward the point, placing my bait on the eastern slope out of sight I begin slow rolling my swimbait…….nothing.
Adjusting the cast I cast over the point on the western slope, assuming the fish held on the point corresponding with the depth it was cruising my cast subsequently will place my bait on the crest of the point at around the same point the fish is sitting.
Slow roll, as the bait comes to the crest of the point I slightly hesitate the reel and an ever so slight pop then wind, the second my imparted action ceases, THUMP.
I recall David Dudley once stating something along the lines of.”I try to gather enough information from each catch to write a 1 page write up about the observations regarding that catch”..I truly think that if we all used similar tactics we would become better anglers.
I personally kept a complete log of fish over 5lbs I caught in 2012 from public waters (46), including moon phase, time, spot/setup/ bait etc…It’s a truly valuable document because even with that relatively small # of upper class fish I notice real tangible patterns, and I don’t meant tournament style patterns.
The fish ate a custom rigged swimbait I use to specifically catch giant fish in this type of scenario, I wont go into detail as to what the exact rigging is, dont want to over analyze bait rigging, hehe.
I truly believe this fish would not have eaten another bait no matter how it was presented in the time windows I viewed the fish, no…not even a senko. Not even a similar swimbait, end of story.
Here is the fish:
I hope the time it took to write this story was worthwhile and I can change at-least one persons mind set when thinking about bass and giving them credibility. There’s a lot of big fish to be caught in this state that simply aren’t even believed to exist. They are there.
Big thanks to Colby for putting this on here for me! Look forward to more guest writers on my blog and other good stuff!
Tight Lines!
2012 Video Review
I put together a little video with some of my favorite clips from the past year. I had my Kodak Playsport video camera since around May. Enjoy!
Tight Lines!
Part Two
The most memorable part of this trip other then catching 75+ bass a day would have to be me flipping my boat and swimming through Smith Ferry Rapid . Looking back at the incident I can laugh, mostly because nothing bad happened except for losing a few things. I did more then a few things wrong going down this set of rapids and the number one thing, I wasn’t wearing my life jacket. Before committing to going down I stopped on the side of the river to add more air to my pontoons and I was going to get my life jacket on, but I didn’t take the time and effort to unstrap it from my seat, I had it bungee corded on with a bunch of stuff. Second biggest mistake was that my boat was super back heavy, as you can tell from the photo in my last post. That combined with leaning back in my seat instead of forward while going through the big waves, led to my demise of flipping. Third mistake was not getting out and scouting what I was about to go down, all I knew was it sounded gnarly. Fourthly and lastly was I should of done a better job of making sure everything on my boat was secure and or water proof. My small color was dumped with its contents, my shirt was lost which I wasn’t wearing since it was wet. And my net was lost, luckily my fishing rods and video camera were secured to the boat good.
The second day on the river started out really well, catching some nice fish and seeing new waters. While floating along I could tell we were coming towards a rapid or what I like to call it a drop. I was lagging behind and before I got to the rapid I made sure my rods and a few other things were secured. Before going down the drop I looked to my right and seen Colby and his jaw dropped, I don’t think he believed I was going for it. Even though I didnt scout it out I made it through successfully and had a blast! I tried to talk the others into carrying our boats to the top and running it again. None of them were down though, ha. There is a small slot on river right if you prefer not to go down fun rapids. That was the first drop which the photo was taken at the bottom of. This section only has two tricky sets of rapids and both you can portage around.
And here’s my infamous video of me flipping my boat at the Smith Ferry Rapids on the Umpqua River. I apologize for the poor camera angle, my video camera was secured to one of my rod holders which is on the right pontoon. Getting tossed out wasn’t as bad as it could of been for me especially since I wasn’t wear my PFD. Luckily I didn’t get sucked down into the rapid and get beat up against the rocks, which could of happened easily. I struggled trying swim at first but eventually let the river take me, and it took me into the same eddy that my boat was in. I sat there trying to catch my breath for a couple minutes then flipped my boat up right. After I realized my rods, camera, and myself were fine, I got back in my boat and shared a laugh with my friends.
Colby with a nice Umpqa River Smallie. The trip was quite awesome. Fishing new waters, catching around 100 bass a day, meeting a new fishing pal Danny. Just all around good times!!
Thanks for reading, and Tight Lines!
Umpqua River
Iv realized I have nothing from any of my Umpqua River trips from this Summer on here and I don’t know why!!!. The Umpqua River has one of the best Small Mouth Bass Fisheries in country I believe, and so iv heard. It also boast some really great Salmon and Steelhead fishing too. The River also has Trout, Shad, and Stripers, among some other species. Me and some buddies head there to fish for the Smallies though aka Small Mouth Bass. They have fight in them like no other on this Umpqua River.
I floated the Umpqua five times this year in my 8 foot Creek Co. Pontoon. First time was around June 11th with Ted and Jon. We went from the bridge before the Kellog Bridge and took out at the Slide Hole. And I must say Ill never put in at this bridge again. It was hell carrying our boats down a steep ass embankment under the bridge. There were two different sections that had ropes so you could walk yourself either down or up, the ropes were in a middle of a trail that went through black berries and poison oak.That first float didn’t take long at all because the water was so high, we decided to float it a week after some heavy rains. The water was murky so we fished blindly not know where to cast because we could not see the bottom structure. I only caught around ten that day almost all came on a white tube. Fishing was super tough but it was still a good experience for my first time on the Umpqua.
Second trip of the year was around August 17th. I rode down from Eugene with Jon, and we met up with my friend Colby and his buddy Danny who came up from Southern Oregon. We floated the river for three days and two nights, doing a stretch of river that is known as the Big K Loop. It was a first over night trip on this river for any us, but Jon had done this float many times before in just one day. This section is said to have the best Small Mouth fishing on the river and I could see why. Almost no body fishes it since it’s surrounded by private property and its a super long float to do unless you have access to the Big K. This just so happen to be the first of four epic trips where we camped along the river and brought only what we could fit on our pontoons. As you can tell from the first picture I was kind of loaded down.
You could catch the bass on a variety of lures which was really fun! Had a blast using a spoon in the quicker water. Id get out of my boat in some of the quick ankle to knee deep water and cast the spoon like i would for steelhead and wait for a pissed off little fish to attack! Smallmouth are good fighters in general, but put them in current and WOW! Some great fun is to be had with light gear, caught my biggest one on a UL rod with 4lb mono.
This was our camp on the first night, what you can’t see is the deer carcass not too far away. Colby was the smart one and brought an actual air mattress, Jon brought a blow up mat you would use for a swimming pool. I brought my sleeping pad which you can see in the first pic rolled up on the back of my Toon. Danny burrowed himself a nice little hole in the sand which I think kept him quite warm, ha. Dinner for me consisted of cold hot dogs, candy bars, and some smoked Salmon. You can see me preparing something, boy was I hungry after fishing all day!
Part 2 of this trip will be in the next post. Thanks for reading. Tight Lines.
Blogging Again! Version 4.2
Iv decided to take this blogging stuff serious once again. No slacking, anymore. Ill be updating some old post and also adding new post from this past year. Look forward for some really sweet reports, pictures, and videos. And Ill hopefully be doing some contests and other cool stuff, so be ready! So But for now Iv got some good news Id like to introduce my newest sponsor, The Creek Company. Iv been using one of their pontoon boats for about three years. And iv caught many nice fish from it and had many more nice days on the water, whether it be a river, lake or a pond. I contacted them recently about sponsoring me and my fishing adventures and they have decided to do so!
Picture taken at Wickiup Reservoir: Oct. 2012
In other news id like to help promote one my buddies. NorthWest Killers Fishing Is doing a steelhead tournament, called The ChromeDome Challenge. And it starts tomorrow December 1st. and goes through February 31st. Each month is a separate tournament and cost $10 a month or $25 for all three months (only if you sign up today!). First place each month is the longest Hatchery Steelhead, grand prize is the longest Hatchery Steelhead for over the 3 month period. Id get in on The ChromeDome Challenge as I have. Just for entering you get a free shirt, also there are prize give a ways even if you don’t get a top three fish!
Tight Lines! And good luck to those that enter!
Camping Trip – Wickiup, East Lake, and Hills Creek Res.
Went on a camping trip on Wednesday (7-25-12) and got back earlier today (7-31) . Spent Wednesday through Sunday at Wickiup, Sunday night at East Lake, and Monday night at Hills Creek Reservoir. Fishing wasn’t spectacular but the weather and two fish made up for the lack of catching. I got to Wickiup Wednesday afternoon and put together my camp site and pontoon boat, by the time I had all the boat and tent stuff put together I had drank a few beers and the wind let up so it was time to get out there! I trolled around until my stomach told me it was times for brats and more beer! While trolling back to my camping spot my Ultra Lite rod goes down and stays down, if i hadn’t known I was in some pretty deep water I would of thought it was snagged up! After picking my rod up out of the holder and a few turns of the reel the fish comes flying out of the water completely and I then knew I had a sweet trout on! After a couple more jumps and runs when it got near the boat I was finally able to net it! 22″ inch and around 3lbs of great meat! I ended up up having a fillet for dinner instead of the brats, and the next night I ate the other fillet, bacon wrapped with onions, garlic and lemon juice.
I thought fishing would be great considering the first days fish, but that wasn’t so. Didnt catch any fish at wickiup Thursday – Saturday. Left for Lava Lake on Sunday, but after taking the wrong road I ended up in Sun River. After buying more ice, beer and a corn dog I decided to head to East and Paulina Lakes instead. East was a very sweet lake except for the fact I couldn’t find any free camping. Ended up staying at Cinder Campground, very nice campground. Fishing at East was a lot better then at Wickiup, I was getting a lot more bites. Once the wind picked up Sunday evening I went back to camp and picked up my anchor and headed back out and sat on anchor and fished a whole worm on the bottom with no weight. About 45min later I started to get bit and picked up a real nice feisty 15″ Rainbow. The next morning the fish were eating off the surface like crazy! But they weren’t real interested in my offerings only got a couple bites Monday morning before leaving the lake. Got to see a poodle with a life jacket on out there though, pretty funny seeing a mid sized poodle on a pontoon boat! Monday I camped out in the back of Hill Creek Res. near the back where the creek comes in, was really nice scenery and very peaceful but no fish for me at this lake. Great weather everyday made for some sweet camping and the mosquitoes weren’t bad at either lakes!
Thanks for reading, and ill add more details and pictures when I get back from camping.
Tight Lines!!
Columbia River Wobbler Fishing
More detailed report to come after I get done Camping at Trillium Lake.
Went up to Rainier to hop on a open seat Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday the fishing wasnt great but not bad either. We ended up with 2 Chinook and a jack in the boat, and missed one other bite. Thursday nothing, and not many of the other boats were doing well either. I got mine while Justin was trying to untangle his nook and wobbler from the net. I was actually holding his rod with my left hand helping him, and had my rod in my right hand, it had only been in the water a minute or two when i noticed a little nibble nibble. So I looked at the captain and said “that’s a bite aint it?” Sure enough it was so I reeled down and set the hook! Didnt get any measurements but it was a nice one! Cut super good. And the Jack was delicious. Many first’s on this trip. And I even ended up going to the Lamiglas factory and picked up a Salmon blank that will be a sweet rod when Combat_Chuck gets finished with it!
Good ol’ Pond Fishing
You can probably tell lately iv been really enjoying doing little fishing videos, well here’s another one! This one starts off with me pulling a bass out of a bunch of crap. I caught it on 8lb mono and it went straight for the shit! It got hung up in it for a few minutes and when I finally decided to go over to where the line meets the water I found out the bass was on top of the water! Then its onto some more pond fishing but this time Ted and myself were fishing for carp but caught these squaw and sucker fish instead! Last clip is my friend telling a story about a encounter he had with a ‘friendly’ Nutria.
Thanks for reading/watching! Tight Lines!!
Blazer Shane's Blog 