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Welcome to Valley
Outdoorsmen
July 18, 2002
By: Ron Wilson & Tim Paes
This is my 1st official
article as a partner in valleyoutdoorsmen.com. On this page Tim Paes and
I will do our best to have informative stories on up to date hunting and
fishing adventures. We hope that you will enjoy reading them as much as
we enjoy going out and experiencing our great outdoors for your
enjoyment!
One of our goals is to relay any information, techniques, etc we
discover through a guide or on our own to help you be more proficient at
catching or dispatching whatever your quest may be while you are reading
our words of wit.
One of the best ways to
learn about fishing or hunting of any type is to go out with a guide.
While they may not show you all their little tricks they will be doing their
best to make you happy with a successful catch or kill. Pay attention,
watch and learn!
In the story below there is a secret tip designed especially for kokanee
fishing. I knew about Pautzees salmon eggs for trout fishing but to
squish them up and then soak the shoepeg corn in it was even a new one
on me! Here is how I learned this secret!
Last Saturday I went to New
Melones to fish for kokanee with Guide Danny Layne of Sonora. Before
Danny showed up at 6 a.m. I got to talk with Lure manufacturer Uncle
Larry of Sacramento who was prefishing for Sundays California Inland
Fisheries Foundation, Inc Project Kokanee Derby. Project Kokanee is
responsible for helping the California Department of Fish and Game plant
over 14 million Kokanee in Northern California waters in the last 10
years.
Danny showed up with his
client John Marmesh of Sonora. We got on the water and started fishing
at 6:30 a.m. Danny got two rods in the water before the first rod went
off and I got to watch John reel in a nice kokanee in the 1 1/2 pound
class. It fell for an Uncle Larry's blue/pink spinner. I mostly watched
as John reeled in fish after fish. John was having a ball and the fish
were on a hot bite! Well I joined in and lost a couple and boated
one, I was black bass fishing again! I've noticed a lot of black bass
fishermen as they would pump the fish to the boat instead of just
reeling steadily. Kokanee have a very soft mouth and the hooks pull out
easily at times and yes I am one of those green fish anglers and would
catch myself pumping the rod up and reeling down every now and then.
At 7 a.m. Danny finally got
all the rods in the water, the fish were on the bite and he couldn't
keep up. By 7:30 a.m. I chuckled as all four rods were out of the water
again and laying in the boat with one fish still flopping in the net. I
told John that I thought we needed to get us a faster guide so we could
catch fish faster. I finally quit being a guest and started lending
Danny a helping hand so we could get back to fishing.
John called his son Kyle on
his cell phone as we munched on some kippered salmon for breakfast,
which John had brought along for us to enjoy. John informed his son that
there would be kokanee cooked on the barby for dinner tonight as he had
a limit of nice ones in the box. John's sons Kyle and Riley don't care
about fishing but they love to eat them after dad gets done cooking them
up.
Danny was also pre-fishing
for the California Inland Fisheries Foundation, Inc Derby that was held
last Sunday. We fished all over the Rose Island area trying to find a
good fish catching pattern for the derby. We fished close to the
islands, out in front and below them and out in the middle of the
lake trying to put together a pattern.
Danny's best lures were
Uncle Larry Spinners behind a silver and green Sep's dodger and a blood
red Apex behind a gold hammer dodger. Danny had put out a white, red
Ex-Cel Lure that had quickly caught a fish but there was a weak spot in
the line and it broke, he never put on another Ex-Cel so we did find out
if that was a hot lure or not. I know its been good for me at other
lakes for kokanee. Every lure was tipped with at least one piece of
shoepeg corn and sometimes two to the hook. As for the scents, we used
plain anise oil, garlic scented, shrimp flavored, salmon egg flavored,
etc. There seems to be as much art in mixing the right blends to soak
the corn in as there is in picking the right colors on the lure to
entice the kokanee to strike the corn tipped hooks. For more information
about trout, kokanee and salmon fishing, call guide Danny Layne at
586-2383.
Sunday I took Ken Moore of
Ripon to Los Vaqueros Reservoir to catch trout, kokanee and maybe
a black bass or two. Ken has a bad back and with the reservoir having 30
boats to rent with only electric motors on them I figured it would be an
easy ride for him, no rocking and rolling to aggravate the back. I know
my back starts getting tired after a day of rock and rolling from all
the wave action from boat traffic.
We arrived at 6 a.m. and the
wind was howling. There would be no boat rentals until the wind
subsided. After waiting around for an hour or so we decided to leave.
Ken suggested we go someplace for breakfast. When I stopped the truck at
9:30 a.m. It was in front of Wolfsen's West Side Locker and Meat in
Gustine. Owner Warren Wolfsen, an avid fisherman was behind the counter
so I got to talk fishing and look at pictures while picking up some
pepper sticks and garlic sausages to eat. Talk about a great place to
pick up meat. He had sausages of just about any style you could think
of. I loved munching on the pepper sticks that were not a bit
greasy.
Ken took me to some of the
local farmers in the area to talk about getting permission for the
Wilson clan to hunt this year. The local farmers were great and once we
got somewhat acquainted we found that there are still a lot of neat
farmers who live in the area that will let you hunt once they know who
you are!
While the day started off
miserably it ended with excitement as I am looking forward to some wild
pheasant hunting, dove hunting, duck hunting and even a field to put
goose decoys in so that we might bag a few geese this year during the
waterfowl season!
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