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KOKE'S ON SATURDAY
& A BASS CATCHING FIX ON SUNDAY
By: Ron Wilson
August 22, 2002.... Bruce Hamby, owner of
Sierra
Sportfishing Guide Service, and I fished the 1st
Annual Pardee II Project Kokanee Fun Derby last Saturday. We had
done no prefishing because Uncle Larry, owner of Uncle Larry's Lures,
was going to give us all the information we needed, all we had to do was
go catch the fish.
Now that we had the right baits, we
headed to the area where Bruce won the last event that was held on the
lake. We were confident that quality fish were still in the area and all
we had to do was find them.
We started fishing at 50 to 70 feet, the
same depth as last weeks New Melones kokanee event. We marked fish and
started catching some small kokes and a couple trout at 65 feet but the
larger kokes weren't eating for us.
We moved upriver and still no luck, just
small fish. We moved back down to the main part of the lake and still
just small fish. We used every apex and spinner we thought would catch
fish without boating a keeper kokanee.
Matthew Baker, of Ripon took top honors
in the trout competition while Bruce and I took a good butt whipping.
At the weigh in, we were talking to Uncle
Larry and some of his buddies. One of them, who we watched catch fish
after fish, apologized for crowding us, as he was fishing over 100 feet
deep. I said no problem, heck our lowest downrigger ball was only 80
feet. Uncle Larry looked at Bruce and me and said "OOPS I guess I
didn't tell you the fish were down around 120 feet". Bruce and I
were so set on finding the right lure to use we forgot all about
figuring out the right depth to fish. We just never did put it together!
Uncle Larry could of saved our bacon with a helpful hint! But, oh well
that's fishing, we went from HERO'S to ZEROS in one weeks time!.
The 167 participants made the 1st Annual Pardee II Project Kokanee Fun
Derby a fantastic success!! Among the participants,
twenty-one juniors, as young as four years old, participated. Once again
hosts, Trudy Machado and Ralph Rose, along with the staff of Lake Pardee
Marina provided excellent facilities in which to enjoy the day. Visit
the California Inland
Fisheries Foundation website for more information on this and all
their events.
Sunday afternoon Norval Pimentel and I
went to Kelsey
Bass Ranch to get a black bass fix.
Norval started off catching them on a
Carolina rig with a centipede looking bait that was brown with black
flake. I was busy using topwater frogs. My first 3 strikes were misses.
Norval decided to join in on the topwater
fun and we were soon down 9 to 1. That's 9 hits and one fish hooked.
The bass were chasing baitfish all over
the 120 acre lake and the noise they made when they broke the surface
was awesome. I saw one school of bass, that looked like they all were in
the 5 pound class, chopping at the baitfish. It looked like buckets of
water thrown in the air as they thrashed in a feeding frenzy. We were
busy using senko's and flukes at the time when Norval finally decided to
quit being lazy and throw a ripbait at a few of them. No monsters but
few scrappy 3 pounder's. I hooked a couple on a rattletrap.
Around 5 p.m., I suggested we head for
home too a good steak dinner. Norval said he was happy with the catching
and our experiments.
We experimented with senko's, using flex
tubing in the middle to see if we could get the baits to stay on better
when fished wacky style. We also tried a lot of experimental baits that
were not working and still managed to catch a bunch of fish in 4 hours
of fishing.
About 10 minutes after 5 I tossed a frog
on the bank and a nice bass all but tore the rod out of my hand with a
sideways strike, The fish hooked itself and made a, "make my
day", leap high out of the water throwing my black frog with red
legs right back at me. I told Norval that fish just fed me my lunch and
now it was time for us to head home to the steak dinner that would be
waiting on the table.
We had a great afternoon of fishing,
Norval had 15 to 20 fish while I boated a half dozen, no monsters but
several nice 3 pounder's. One thing I can always count on at Kelsey's
Bass Ranch, it doesn't take long to get a quick bass catching fix! |
