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AN
AFTERNOON AT KELSEY BASS RANCH
By: Tim Paes
July 25, 2002....After two weeks of
working on the website, it was time for a little R & R. Sunday
afternoon I hooked up my Stratos bass boat and headed for Snelling, CA
to meet Ron Wilson and Norval Pimentel to have a little lunch at the
Dredger Inn and then do some fishing at Kelsey Bass Ranch.
As we sat in the
restaurant enjoying our lunch, you could look out the window and watch
several ski boats and trailers with jet skis heading up Merced Falls Rd
on their way to Lake McClure. All we could do was look at each other,
smile and say, “Boy I’m sure glad we’re not going to McClure!”
You see Kelsey allows no jet skies and no water skiers on its
impoundment.
Kelsey Bass Ranch is a
125-acre lake located on a 7,000 acre working cattle ranch in the Sierra
Nevada Foothills near Snelling, CA. The ranch has been owned and
operated by the Kelsey family for over 150 years. The lake is stocked
with Bluegill, Catfish, Trout and the quarry we would be after, Florida
strain Black Bass.
As you make the drive
by the Kelsey ranch house and down the long gravel road to the lake, you
can feel the stress of everyday life slipping into dreams of catching
lunker bass. As you peek over the last hill and see the lake nestled in
the rolling hills, the thought of the everyday grind is the furthest
thing from your mind.
Unbelievably, when we
arrived there was nobody on the lake. The middle of summer on a Sunday
afternoon and we had the lake to ourselves. What more could you ask for.
This could only happen at Kelsey Bass Ranch!
 Norval launched my boat
into the water; I fired up the Evinrude outboard and drove about 20 feet
to pick up Ron and Norval, and then shut off the big motor and started
fishing. You don’t have to go far to find a good spot to fish on the
lake, they’re all good; some are just a little better.
I started with a black
Super Pork “Sleeky” with no weight, rigged weedless. About my 5th
cast, a bass in the 3 to 4 lb class comes out of the weeds and hammers
the Sleeky, taking it around some brush, back into the weeds and
immediately pulls free. Fish 1 anglers 0, and if that wasn’t insult
enough, I hear Norval in the back of the boat saying, “if you were
going to let him do that, you should have left him for the rest of
us!”
Another 4 or 5 casts
with the Sleeky and I redeemed myself with one about 2 ½ lbs, Norval
followed up with one over 3 lbs on a watermelon red Zoom
Brushog. We worked
our way down the dam catching a few more on the Brushog, Sleeky and
watermelon red Senko Ron was fishing with. We were on the lake less then
an hour and had 4 fish between 3 and 4 lbs in the boat plus a few
smaller ones in the 2 to 3 lb range.
We continued to fish
our way around the lake trying different baits and techniques and
managed to catch fish on everything we did. However some baits and
techniques did work better.
Ron was throwing a
black Snag Proof frog with pink legs and I would switch to a pink Sumo
frog when we got to the grass choked shallow areas of the lake.
Ron’s better fish came on his frog; I had a few blowups on mine
but didn’t have any eat it. Norval had started fishing a pumpkin Senko
and was methodically picking apart the spots Ron and I hadn’t fished
as we went down the bank. Time after time you would hear a grunt, turn
around and see Norval’s St Croix rod doubled over with another good
fish on the line.
The wind began to get
stronger as the day churned on, making it difficult to control the boat
and throw the weightless Sleeky. I switched to a Carolina rigged
watermelon red Brushog and started catching fish in the deeper water.
However, these fish weren’t of the same quality as the fish caught
shallow.
About 4:00 p.m. we saw
John Kelsey and his family making their way down the road towards the
lake. We decided to go over, say hi and visit for a while. We talked
about the lake, fishing and goings on. John is always looking for ways
to improve the lake and its fishery and is open to suggestions and
comments. Norval had just gotten back from a trip to Alabama, where he
and the other members of the Stratos Boats Factory Team fished the
world-renowned Dream Lake, touted as the best bass fishery in the
nation. Norval told John what he had right here in the Central Valley
was every bit as good as the Dream Lake.
We still had a couple
hours of sunlight left, so we headed back to the water to try and find a
monster bass to cap off a great day. We also wanted to see if we could
get a frog bite going.
We managed to catch a
few more fish before calling it quits, but we never did find that
monster we were after. But who could complain when we caught in the
neighborhood of 35 bass with the majority of them in the 3 to 4 ½ lb
range!
The key to Kelsey on
this day was in the grass. The majority and better fish came out of less
then 4 feet of water and tight in the grass.
The fish never did get
hot and heavy for the frog, they wanted the bait slow. The Senko, Sleeky
and Brushog all fished weightless were the key producers. You had to put
the bait in the grass pockets to find the fish. They just couldn’t
seem to resist the slow suspended fall of these baits.
 When fishing Kelsey you
better have stout equipment. These fish are unbelievably strong and want
to take you right into the grass. I use a medium heavy St. Croix
flipping stick with 60 lb Powerpro braided line for frogs. I use the
same setup for Senko’s and the Sleeky, except I add a 20 lb P-Line
monofilament leader.
Kelsey is an awesome
fishery and will be for years to come. This was evident as we fished
around patches of grass that were loaded with 1000’s of bass fry. With
the proper management and care shown by John Kelsey, this lake will show
consistent improvement year after year.
In my trips to the lake
I’ve only fished for bass. If fishing for the Trout, Bluegill and
Catfish is as fun, I might just have to give it a try. As a matter of
fact, John talked about the huge Catfish that roam the lake. He said
there are some in the 30 lb class. John commented that he would like to
see the members catch some of the Cats and take them home. They are
becoming too numerous and having an impact on the bass fishery. Catfish
can become ferocious predators and have a negative impact on the bass
population.
For more information on
the ranch visit their website at www.kelseybassranch.com
or give them a call at (209) 563-6573.
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