May 30, 2011

It's the Meat in the Seat

Been a while, but I haven't really had a lot of chances to pick up the fly rod lately, and when I do, it's pissing rain. With weather still on the radar, the trout fishing will have to wait another week two (or three)... and when is enough, enough? I mean really... I'm sorry for all the bad-mouthing the past few years about the lack of Spring... but we're good on water here in the state. We were good like two months ago. I'm okay with the cool temps, but the constant precip is really starting to bug.

I should point out right away that this report lacks any fishing with a fly rod: I still consider myself to be a bit of a methodologist when it comes to fishing. I'm coming to the conclusion that it's not rod in the hand that gives one method a bad name, but the meat in the seat...

Squeaked a few Friday afternoons out on Folsom, but the fishing has been pretty crappy. A fish here and there but nothing consistent. So far this year, mostly just a waste of boat gas. Doesn't help when the lake is overrun by a fleet of giant wakeboard boats either. There should be a noise ordinance on that lake. I understand that you've got this crazy expensive boat with a 20 ba-zillion watt sound system... but you've gotta understand that not everybody likes lady gaga, and there really aren't many walls out on the lake to block that noise. Also, I hope you were playing that for your girlfriend, cause if you weren't, your man card just got revoked.

Anyway... after a few less-than-worth it trips to Folsom we decided to reroute the chart to Oroville this last Saturday. We heard the bite was turning on and the hope was that the weather would scare off all the lice on the water, and it turned out to be a sure thing. The lake was empty except for the die hard house boaters and bass fisherman. Weather was great at 8am when we put in, but it didn't take long for the cloud cover to roll in. No rain yet, just a little brisk when the wind was blowing. Didn't matter though because the bite was en fuego! First cast and Mike hooks up.

Four or five casts later, we've both got 3 fish to the boat... and so on and so forth...


We fished a lot of cover in the Middle Fork to start and did well on the open water, but the bite was definitely not as strong in the coves and protected areas. After an hour or so of fishing protected water (it was a little nicer because the wind was blowing pretty good on the open water) we moved back out into the wind and immediately found fish. Three or four times I landed three fish on back to back casts. nothing real big, but a lot feisty spots that pulled hard. I even broke one off! It goes without saying (or seeing...) that it was clearly the fish of the day too. Fish were everywhere, but the greatest concentrations were on the rocky ledges out in the open water.

The fishing was so good that we couldn't leave even when the rain started pouring and the wind howled. The weather just kept the bite going. We left before 6 with wet feet and well over 60 fish to the boat. Might have to make a trip back next weekend.