Johnny Who?

It was Sunday, October 20th, when JU and the Pro got another chance to drift through the fish lane in the American.  We could have gone upstream by the hatchery where the salmons stacked up in the river this time of the year; but, we would have to share the river with a bunch of other boats....  Johnny opted for fishing where we're the only boat around.  Armed with an awesome new/used one piece 8'6'' Fenwick spinning rod discovered at a thrift shop for $4.95, Johnny was ready.  We pulled plugs from 10:30 am until 3 pm.  Right around 11 am, Johnny got a monster take-down.  When he went to set the hook, the drag could be heard screaming.  As it turned out, Johnny forgot to set the drag.  The salmon took the plug, tugged the plug a few times, and then let it go :-(  Doh!!!  Thus, Johnny tighten up the drag real good.  There was not another bite to be had until 2:30 pm.  This time again, the rod bent way over.  Johnny removed the rod from the holder and set the hook hard!  All of the sudden, the entire line went light, much to Johnny's surprise.  By the time the line was reeled in, the plug was gone because the line broke! It was just one of those days.  Both take downs were on the new/used Fenwick rod, using sardine wrapped size K14 silver Kwikfish.  Maybe Johnny United should be bitten by a radio-active monster fish instead of just getting scratched by the scales of one :-)

At least my brother the Fish Whisperer did much better; he wrote:

As for my steelhead I went out to my favorite spot down river of sunrise.  I did some errands before going so it wasn’t until around 1-2pm when I finally arrived with my brother in law.  We fished until sunset.  He caught a steel head on a spoon lure I let him borrow.  About an hour later I caught mine on a big Kastmaster that I found on the E Carson.  These were both smaller hatchery steelhead with adipose fins clipped.  We saw DFG coming down the river on kayaks & they said the action was slow on kings.  They said there were a lot in the river, but most upstream were pretty dark.  They said that steelhead action been more consistent.  However that was almost 2 weeks ago(Oct 5^th) as I haven’t fished since.

Fish Whisperer with American River steelie!

On a Kastmaster?

Yummy...