I flew to North Dakota on Wednesday, June 24th, to pick up my daughter. On Thursday, June 25th, we drove back to California. Together, we drove approximately 1,500 miles in 26 hours!
You all know I can't drive more than two hours straight without taking a break; but by the power of God, I drove fourteen hours straight before my daughter took over for a few hours.... Once again, with God's grace, we avoided hitting two deers while driving through Montana.
One of our favorite fishing day-trip is from SacTown to Lake Kirkwood. Yesterday, we had an opportunity to do just that! And we caught a few fish while we were there....
Hello
I got the best seat in the house :-)
Super "little j"
Supergirl!
Superboy!
Super ninja!
Wow!
Who needs a back drop?
My new friend "little l"
Awesome JU nature TV!
It's so hot: it's 70 degrees?!?
Hurry, it's heavy!
That's nine limits possible!
What is that thing?
Mrs. Miracle fishing action:
"I am have a great time, daddy! Not like the last fishing Friday," says "little j."
"Let me show you how it's done," says Miss Mystic.
I gotta confess, I didn't sleep well last night because big bro. called around 4 PM and told me that he witnessed people landing more than 70 shad in the Sacramento River earlier in the day. He asked if I was interested in trying for some shad again. Hence, I tossed and turned all night long. I dreamed about the different fishing rigs and double and triple hookups we're gonna get. So I got up at 0500 hours this morning and went for a 2-mile jog on my treadmill at an incline!
Just as he promised, he and dad arrived at my home at 7 AM. We launched at Garcia Bend Park and anchored at Freeport Blvd. around 8 AM. Around 9 AM, both dad and big bro. got a hookup at the same time! That's the double hookups that I was dreaming about. They both landed. Dad had the hot rods and kept landing a few here and there. Finally, around 10 AM, I got a take-down. I fought the fish until it was near the boat.... Then the line went limp! I checked and found out that my 4-lb test line broke. With it went my pink grub. I replaced my 4-lb. test with an 8-lb line.
The highlight of the day was when the same pole went down again around 11 AM. As I was busy landing the fish, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw my other fishing pole on my right got hit! Once the fish on the left was in the net, I dropped the pole and retrieved the fish on the right. I was using light trout fishing poles so the action was fantastic. After a brief fight, I landed... an undersized striped bass. What a thrill just to have both poles going off at the same time.
Around noon the action slowed down. We ate lunch and then left. It wasn't a super shad fishing day, but it was a great day compared to our last shad outing! We ended up with dad landing 6, big bro. landing 2, and me landing 2, for a total of 10.
My contribution since I ran out of bottled water :-)
It's getting to be regular and I love it! Every summer Fridays, I'm planning to escape the heat in SacTown and heading up to the mountain in search of trout. Such was yesterday while it was hot in SacTown, we headed up to the foot hills. We first had to find the correct location, then we had to figure out what the fish liked, and finally, we had to catch the fish.
We used the map from the Department of Fish and Wildlife website to look for Angels Creek in Murphys, CA. Big mistake! We arrived at a location that was private and no public access allowed. Fortunately, I found a nearby park with some trout in it. They didn't look big enough to entice us to wet our lines. So I attempted to swing from a rope instead. Ouch! Didn't know my hands would hurt doing it. Finally, we came to the correct location around 9:30 AM. Two fishermen already got their limits. We looked down and saw a bunch of sizable trout. We were excited.
Our excitement turned into disappointment as we threw all our usual at the fish and they were not interested. We used worms, Z-Rays, spinners, spoons, power eggs, salmon eggs, just to name a few.... My heart sank when "little j" said, "Dad, I'm bored. The fish are not biting." I tried harder to find the right presentation since the time of day was way off for fishing (trout are active early in the morning and at sunset). Two and a half hours later, I found the right trick. It was all over the trout. Every cast was a hit! The lucky lure turned out to be a homemade rig with a yellow tip, white skirt, and pink tail.
Finally around noon, I landed a 12-incher. I had the whole gang switch to the new setup. Shortly after, Miss Mystic landed her first fish of 2015, an 11-incher. After this, our fishing hole was invaded by tourists! They jumped into the fishing hole and started swimming. So we did the same thing, we put away our fishing poles and started swimming too: "When you can't beat them, join them."
We left early to try to find another fishing hole in the Mokelumne River. We arrived at the bridge called Middle Bar crossing the river. We were the only ones there. We looked down and saw huge trout swimming around (5-pound plus for sure). Once again we tried different techniques, but there was to be no feeding frenzy at this location. We left for home trying to beat the traffic rush. At least we found the location, discovered what the fish liked, and caught a couple to bring home. What a great day. Praise God!
About half a dozen trout swimming around here.
I got the best seat in the house.
We're going to the library. Let us know when you figure out what the fish likes.
The Patriarch, the Captain, and I braved triple-digit
weather yesterday to try to catch some shad.We heard great reports last week regarding “the shad have landed.”The Captain studied the tides and decided
that we would not have to be on the waters until around 11 AM.And so it was.Every fishing trip is unique.The memorial things about this trip were
pow-wow time, scenery along the Sacramento River through down-town, and
catching shad on a rig made to catch jack smelt.
Between the Patriarch and the Captain, I have access to
almost 150 years of life experience at my disposal.We chatted about relatives back home that I
have never heard of….But, I enjoyed the
conversations regarding their friends catching shad on the Sacramento River the
best!Unfortunately, we only ran into
one of their friends yesterday.He told
us that where we had anchored was the hot spot… but that was last week :-(Darn!No wonder, we were the only boat in the spot whereas the week before,
there were twenty boats on the same spot :-(Double darn!!
As great as the conversations with dad and big bro. and as
great as the river scenery, greater was the fact that we weren’t skunk on this
fishing trip :-)I did a strange thing at one of our fishing
locations.I modified a sabiki rig, used
for catching jack smelt, and lowered it into the water.Within about five minutes, I got a take-down
and landed a nice 18-inch shad hen.That
was to be the only fish landed for the day!
Yes, I know; fishing is not all about catching.But it sure feels good.The added bonus was to spend the day with dad
and big bro. and picked their brains about life.Enjoying the view of the down-town water
front from the river is just fantastic.I guess it’s not too hard to please a farm boy from ‘Nam.
Here are some pictures for your enjoyment:
Nothing to do with this blog. Just an awesome cookie made by my lovely wife!
Our first fishing location was near these birds. Good thing we had our hats on :-)
These were our old productive fishing spots, but not this time.
Bridge over the American River.
The lone friend of the Captain that we encountered. How come they anchored so far from us?
Wahoo!It’s summer
time once again in Cali.This means JU
and the Miracle Squad will be doing a lot of day trips around da mountain.We took one such trip yesterday.It took us two hours to get to our initial
destination to meet up with best friend “da Wiz.”It turns out the Season has not opened and
the gates were closed to all activities accept hiking!?!So a hiking we did do, and then some :-)Realizing that the fishing-door is closed for
this location, we went to a different location or rather locations that we have
never been to before.Hence the “California
Dreaming” begins… to go to places we haven’t been, two new locations.
According to da Wiz, the California Department of Fish &
Wildlife (CDFW) has recently stocked fish in the Silver Fork of the American
River near the town of Kyburz, CA.This
is the town that we passed by on Highway 50, on the way to South Lake Tahoe for
the past two decades.Unfortunately, we
have never stopped by to smell the roses, in this case, the pine trees.A short drive later, we found ourselves at
China Flat Campgrounds.We scoped out
the place, and discovered a beautiful sandy beach with a swimming hole.The swimming hole was deserted.A good tip we gathered from a local is that we
should avoid visiting this location on the weekends.It was around noon, so we picnicked at this
location.While here, Miss Mystic
captured a snake having lunch also.See the video.
After lunch, we decided to scope out another location along
Silver Fork Rd.Wow!What a fantastic view and a potentially great spot for a day trip of
fishing and hiking.We witnessed
people pulling out fish from this location :-)We made a mental note that this location is
not kid-friendly.It would be good for the
more adventurous of hearts.Seeing that
the T-Storm is brewing, we took off at around 1:30 PM.We left just in the nick of time, because we
caught the tail end of hail.We arrived home around 3:30 PM.
What a treasure to be able to enjoy the beauty of Cali so
close by.There are so many more places
that we hope to discover this summer, if God’s willing.Although, I will not post any fish pictures
this time, I will report that we caught one beautiful limit of rainbow trout around
12-inch each :-)
Now enjoy the pictures and video:
Whoa! Is it a big one?
According to da Wiz: "If a snake can catch fish, what's your excuse?"
