GeoDUDE Fisherman

It was a super nice day for a trip around the mountains to escape the heat in Sac Town.  I brought a few fishing poles along....

Is this enough fishing poles?

Today we were blessed to have The Captain and his lovely wife joined us.  We left Sac Town and met up with WizTech at our usual MCD in Placerville.  We then continued on to Dark Lake and arrived at 9 AM.  I set up four fishing poles with power balls for the troop and started to hike around the lake.  Half way across the lake, casting and retrieving a Kastmaster in the process, I had no bump.  But then I heard the beeping sound of the diesel truck backing up.  Could it be?  It must be!  A fish truck!!!  I started running back across the lake to where the troop was.  There it was....  A fish truck!!!  But I guessed that already :-)

100 pounds or 300 pounds, that is the question....

I neglected to mention that today, I also took a new fisherman with me.  Although he is an excellent basketball player, he had never fished.  Thanks be to God, the fish truck came because we were not getting any bites.  I am happy to report... I got him "into fish."  So he now can brag that he caught his very own first fish in California, USA!!!

Introducing...  GeoDUDE Fisherman!

 This place that we visited is very magical; the beauty is hard to beat.

East side of the lake.

By the boat ramp where the fish was stocked.

However, the fishing wasn't that great today.  The water temperature was warm, so DFW staff stocked 100 pounds instead of 300 pounds of trout.  I had a nice conversation with him.  Due to the warm water temperature, the fish mortality rate was high and around a dozen newly stocked trout floated belly up :-(  The staff was a rookie.  He asked me where Wrights Lake was??!?!?

This is JU signing out...  God loves you.  Have a blessed day.

Homemade Spinners

I am so very excited!!!  God is good.

Remember at the end of last year's salmon fishing season, I made a bunch of spinners?  Well, here in Sac Town, salmon fishing season started Sunday, July 16th.  Today, I woke up before the rooster crow and got to my fishing spot around 5 AM!  Since legal fishing time was one hour before sunrise, I started fishing when I can see my hands with my naked eyes, which was around 5:15 AM.  Only about a third cast, I felt a tug already!  Or maybe it was a dreaded snag!  I don't want to loose my homemade lure!  About 15 minutes into fishing and bam!  Fish on!  It was way too light to be a salmon.  As it turned out, it was a bass!

I was joined later by brother Dale aka Lucky Fisherman.  It was a pleasure catching up and shooting the breeze with him.  I fished with Lucky until 7 AM with no further fishing action for both of us.  I came home to wake up my family for morning prayers.  My son, the Monk, didn't even know I went fishing?!??!!!  God is good.

Victim of the S.I.R.E.N.

With God's grace, I have a very good feeling about this coming salmon season and the S.I.R.E.N. (Salmon Inviting Rotating Enchanting NOOSE!!!).  Except today, the bass was a victim instead????  It was let go because it was only 6 inches long?!?!

Peace out,
-JOHNNY

Delta Bass Fishing

I woke up at 4:30 AM this morning.  Yes, I was a little bit excited!!!  I got to go fishing with GMF!

Our plan was to do some fishing at Folsom Lake.  I got to Broadway Bait & Tackle to buy some minnows, but was told that the minnows from the last shipment died!!!

"No more minnows," said the staff.

Okay, I was so early, I got time to go to another bait shop, the one that I use to go to anyway.  I went to Romeo's Bait & Tackle on Freeport Blvd.

"Sold out.  Maybe tomorrow...." Said the man.

I went to another bait shop on the same street, Delta Bait & Tackle.  What?!?!  It was 6:30 AM and the shop was not open!

Dejected, I met up at GMF's home with no minnows :-(

"That's okay.  We'll try a different place, using different techniques."  Said GMF.

Thus, began my journey of many "firsts" again :-)

o   First time launching out of New Hope Landing RV Park & Marina.
o   First time using Rat-L-Trap lure to target Bass and had great success.
o   First time catching a crappie.  Yes, that is a type of fish.  Look it up....

After trying a bunch of different techniques, GMF got me into fish quickly using Rat-L-Trap lipless crankbait.  Together, easily, we must have released more than a dozen undersized bass.  GMF managed to boat two fat bass, while JU landed his first ever crappie!!!

Fatter when compared with Folsom Lake bass.

JU's first ever crappie

Here is a one minute video summary of another blessed day!

Peace out,
-JU

Family Fishing Day - Lake Kirkwood

Notice that I have changed the Fishing Fridays into Family Fishing Day to accommodate the older children's work and summer schedules.

I know, you have probably heard it before, but Lake Kirkwood is one of my favorite lakes to fish at!!!  At this lake, you can bring inflatable boats to paddle back and forth, you can jump into the lake from a rope hanging from a tree, you can hike around the lake, and you can even fish :-)

Lake Kirkwood is just close enough for a day-trip from Sac Town, although we have to get up pretty early to make it happen.  Thus, yesterday, Thursday (7/13/2017), we left our home at 6 AM.  An hour later, we stopped by MCD in Placerville for a quick breakfast and met up with our usual reliable fisherman :-)

Some of us can barely keep our eyes open :-)

We arrived at Lake Kirkwood around 9 AM.  There was a sign posted at the entrance that the campground is closed.  We proceeded cautiously to our usual parking spot near the end of the paved road, at the mouth of the dirt road that led to one of several boat accesses to the lake.  No motors are allowed at this lake.  Girl scout troops would launch their canoes at this location and ferry their goods to the far end of the lake where their cabins resided.  Yesterday, we saw one girl swim the entire length of the lake!  I was not certain of the measurement, length wise, but it looked very long and I was very impressive.

We fished from our favorite rock.  See the post from two years ago.  Yes, that was the last time we came to this beautiful lake.  Here's the link: http://jultimatefisherman.blogspot.com/2015/06/fishing-fridays-lake-kirkwood.html.

This time around, however, we did not get a bite for nearly two hours!!!  I went back to the van to get more chairs, but made a stop along the way to cast out a Thomas.  First cast, I felt that familiar tug.  Was it my imagination?  A few casts later, the same thing happened, although I did not see any fish chasing the lure in.  A few more casts... and...  yes!  Fish on, baby!  It was a small planter.

First fish came to hand around 10:45 AM.

But this sign of life indicated that we setup in the wrong location.  So we moved near the entrance of the lake, by the tree with the rope.  We also shorten our leaders (4 feet or longer) to 2-3 feet leaders.  We used power balls of various colors and floated worms.  It appeared that these planters only hit the power balls and ignored the worms!  Crazy!  Usually... no fish can escape a juicy worm.  Then again, usually, we would have limited out in two hours :-)  Once, we found the location, it was game over....  As it turned out, the bottom rigs were great in the shallow.  The lures were just as effective in the cove by the original rock.

We caught some fish...  The children swam...  We had another blessed day!

I think your GoPro is on...

We found where they were hiding.

Now that I am retired...

Got this one on a lure.

Splash - The children had fun jumping into the lake.  Here's the video:

Here's another video showing fish caught using lure:

NOTE: Bring 1/4 oz. lure for the next trip!

Have a blessed day.
-JU

Right In My Backyard!

Friday was another triple digit day in Sac Town.  Thankfully, best friend WizTech, affectionately, known to my kids as "Uncle Mike," decided to accompany me on another scouting trip up the mountain, where the high temperatures were in the eighties.  We wanted to explore Sardine Lake Lower.  According to Google Maps, we should take Interstate 80; but, WizTech decided to take State Hwy 49 instead.  Boy, am I glad he did!

We have never traversed this road before.  The road is rather winding, but the view is fantastic!  We left Sac Town around 6:15 AM and got to the first rest stop at 8 AM.  We decided to stop by this mom & pop store called the Indian Valley Outpost Resort.  The owners Dave & Karla are extremely nice and pleasant.  I promised to post their business card in my blog.  So here it is.

Definitely would visit again the next time I am around.

You can reserve a teepee like this for camping

Nice mom & pop store.

After coffee break, we proceeded onward.  Half an hour later (8:30 AM), we came by a day-use area next to the Yuba River with no one in sight.  We were very tempted to wet our lines, but we did not want to take too long in reaching our destination!

Convict Flat day use area.

8:45 AM - We came by a small town that if you blink you may have passed it :-)  It's best to view the video of the town here:

9:10 AM - We made a U-Turn to check out an awesome water/spring fall by the road.  Here is a picture and a video to show the spot.

Finally, by 9:30 AM, we arrived at Sardine Lake Lower.  What a beautiful lake.  It reminded me of Little Virginia Lake.  It is a small lake that is full of trout.  Although we arrived late, we got into action right away.  WizTech hooked the first fish within seconds of tossing his line out!  Unfortunately, we were spoiled.  These small planters did not excite us.  We tried to release everyone of them, but had to keep some because they swallowed the hook and were floating belly up when we released them :-(

Views of Sardine Lake Lower:

WizTech with a fish on!

Here's the video:

We left Sardine Lake Lower at 11:30 AM in search of Salmon Lake Lower.  We found the Salmon Creek and started hiking in to Salmon Lake Lower.  After a quarter of a mile hiking with our river sandals, we decided it wasn't very wise.  So we ate our lunch at Salmon Creek and headed back to the car.  We will have to plan a trip to Salmon Lake Lower at a future date.

Salmon Creek - No lake in sight....

We took these last two pictures at a scenic stop before heading back to Sac Town.  We left the mountain behind around 12:30 PM and arrived at WizTech's home at 3:00 PM.

It's incredible how vast and beautiful California is and I am so very grateful and thankful to be able to explore a portion of it.  I am in awe of God's wonderful creation!

Peace out,
-JU

Another First...

This morning it dawned on me that as I turn 53 years old, I should strive to jog 5 miles under 53 minutes!!!  Then I woke up :-)  I missed my mark by over a minute :-(

JU missed the mark by 69 seconds :-(

Now on to fishing...

I took the crew fishing yesterday (Fishing Friday).  With my nephew and friends, we were nine fishermen all together!!!

We arrived at Loon Lake around 9:30 AM.  There were two fishermen with three fat, football-size rainbow on their stringer, estimated at about 1 pound each!  I got all excited.  We set out our fishing poles loaded with power bait and night crawlers floating at various lengths from the bottom.  We sat in the shades waiting for some action!

"little j" is patrolling the fishing rods...

By around 11 AM, no one got a bite!?!!?  And the bank was loaded fishermen! 

A little while longer, our fishing pole on the far right corner went bonkers, up and down!!!  The kids were screaming, "Anyone gonna get that?"  I rushed to turn on my camera to video tape the action.  FW - no, not my brother Fish Whisperer, but rather my nephew Fishing Wonder - who hasn't seen any fishing action in a while, was chosen to bring in the fish.  I was content video taping the occasion.  The fish fought hard, and I was beaming with joy that FW was gonna have some awesome footage to show mom and dad.  My daughter, Ms. Vitality, netted the fish.  And it was...  first ever...  in my thirty years of fishing the Sierras... a freaking huge, big...  sucker fish!!!  I didn't know sucker fish can survive the cold water.  To add insult to injury, my phone experienced a glitch and did not record the moment!!!

I searched the Internet and found a picture of the sucker fish that looks just like the one we caught, but did not take a picture of...

Sucker fish.

We picked up around 1:30 PM to head back to Sac Town.  By then, there were around 20 fishing poles out and we were the only one that landed the sucker fish.  I spoke with the two fishermen that had the three fish on the stringer.  They were floating night crawlers four feet off the bottom and they caught their fish early in the morning.  They too had not caught any thing while we were there.  Not one of our baits was touched when we picked up to leave....

Ms. Vitality, "I must be crazy to be fishing at Loon Lake :-)"

God's country.

Next Fishing Friday?

Peace out,
-JU