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GOOD
FRIENDS, GOOD FOOD & GOOD FISHING
By: Ron Wilson
August 7, 2003....
Last Thursday I went to Lake Don Pedro to check out the trout and kokanee
fishing and
partake in the annual Keeper
Worms pro-staff tournament and campout.
Modesto bass pro and
Keeper pro-staffer Norval Pimentel was supposed to meet me there at
daylight, however his motor home broke down on the way up.
I
figured I could still kill the morning with Keeper pro-staffer Larry
Stewart from
Southern California,
who had arrived for the event a couple days earlier. However, when I got
to the lake I found that Larry had gone to Merced to get some last
minute supplies for the weekend!
Oh
well, I had a cloth and polish, so I figured a little time spent
polishing my Ex-Cel lures wouldn't hurt either.
Norval
finally arrived just after Larry at 3:00 p.m., and by 4:00 p.m. we
decided to make a quick run to Kelsey
Bass Ranch to catch some black bass.
On
the drive over we went through thunder, lightning and a downpour that
instantly soaked the carpet in the boat. The drops were huge and I was
glad we were still in the truck and not in the boat!
We
arrived at Kelsey's at 5:00 p.m., launched the boat and immediately
started catching fish on Zoom flukes. Norval headed to the rock dam and
started catching small bass drop shotting Keeper worms.
Luckily
there was only a slight drizzle as we moved around the lake.
What
should have been a wide-open bite, ending up just a fizzle! However, in
the next couple hours we still managed to catch 30 bass up to
3-pounds.
At
7:00 p.m. Norval got the hint we were headed back to the campground when
I fired up his Evinrude outboard and pointed his new Stratos bass boat
toward the ramp.
We
arrived back at Don Pedro around 7:30 p.m. Norval’s wife Dee had
started the coals for dinner and they were hot and waiting for me to
throw on some 1-½ pound steaks I had brought up for the occasion.
Friday
morning Norval and Larry headed out to do some early bass fishing. I got
up at 7:00 a.m., ate a bite and headed out to catch kokanee.
Talk
about getting ones butt kicked! I had all the right baits on, watermelon
and Kevorkian Apex’s, but just a few bumps and one hookup is all I
got.
When
I finally found them, they were 125 feet deep! I said “heck with
this”, that was too deep for me, with my Mag 10 downriggers slow
speed.
I
headed from Jenkins Hill toward Ramos Creek. I had two rods in the water
and two-drop lines. I wasn’t having any luck as I tried to find the
lure these fish wanted.
It
suddenly dawned on me that I was fishing for trout and not Kokanee! I
needed to throttle up the motor so the boat was going from 1 ½ to
2 miles an hour. The Ex-Cel lures I was using wouldn’t work properly
at the slower speed.
Two-miles
per hour was to their liking and I was soon reeling in fish on Ex-Cel
blue/silver spoons.
They
didn't want blue/pink, fire tiger or anything else that I offered them,
so I soon had four Ex-Cel blue/silver spoons in the water.
 I
was catching 1 ½ pound trout from 35 to 60 feet deep and even had
a couple double hookups on one rod. The most exciting double was when
the rod bobbed from the strike and the lure came loose from the line
clip and then suddenly doubled over pulling drag. I thought I had a big
one on until I saw both fish simultaneously
leap out of the water about 80 feet behind the boat. One fish, about 3
pounds, went one way and the other, a 1-½ pounder, went the other
way. All I saw was both lures fluttering in the sunshine as they
splashed back to the lake surface fishless!
I
hooked 14 fish in 3 hours and put 4 in the box that were heading back to
the campground to be put on the Barbie!
I
had dinner with Keeper owners Jim and Judy Clark along with the rest of
the pro staffers and their families.
After
dinner it was time for me to head down the hill for home. I would be
attending the duck blind drawing for the local lakes on Saturday and
then over to the 6th Annual Fall Festival going on at Auto
Life Outdoors Store in Modesto.
While
I stayed busy working the Auto Life event, the festivities kept going at
Don Pedro. I would have to hear all about it after everybody got home.
Jim
and Judy put on a pro-staff tournament during the event and pro-staffer
Jim Monk, of Clear Lake, won the Pro Division title. Jim split shot
Keeper worms to catch his fish. There was a pretty good fluke bite going
on also, but Jims 10 pounds of fish were enough to take home the winner
take all check.
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