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GET THE PALE ITS TIME TO BALE!

By: Ron Wilson

April 15, 2004.... For the past couple Saturdays, Kelly Cornelsen, my physical therapist and I have been fishing

 together. Kelly is getting ready to retire from her practice and wanted to do some bass fishing before she left the state to live in her recently finished retirement home.

A couple Saturdays ago we fished lake Don Pedro, Kelly wanted to catch a good size bass. I told her a 3-pound fish might be the biggest I could put her on because I’m not a big bass fisherman. I like lots of action when I go fishing so I concentrate on numbers of fish.

We launched the boat at Blue Oaks and by the time we got to the buoy line I knew something was bad wrong because the boat was to low in the water and getting lower by the second.

A quick check in the battery compartment and I saw my Thermo Oil batteries covered in water! I turned back towards the dock at a much quicker pace to get the boat back on the trailer and see where all the damn water was coming from.

Kelly was cool and never showed any signs of worry while I was running back up to get the trailer before the boat sunk!

Once I got the trailer back down, a fellow fisherman was there and he guided it on the trailer for me before she sunk!

Water was coming from every hole possible! I knew there had to be a hole somewhere in the boat because the plug was in.

I got the boat off the ramp so other anglers could launch and started going over the boat to see what went wrong.

It didn’t take long to see that my drain hose and live well pipe had silver dollar size holes in them from a rat that had gotten in the garage and chewed on them.

An oily rag and a bottle cap stuck in the outside drain hole solved the problem and we went fishing.

I motored over to schoolhouse point and we started working our way back into the coves in the back. I figured at least maybe I could show Kelly a bass or two on beds.

On the first point I missed a couple fish as I was talking and trying to show Kelly what the bite would be like. She missed one also.

We were using Keeper 082 with red flake 6” worms on red dart heads. This worm has been working to put fish in the boat for several years on Pedro this time of year. My guess is that it resembles a carp or regular minnow.

We got back to a secondary point and I stuck a fish, a nice one in the 2-pound class. Kelly soon had a fish of her own in the 2-pound class and proudly proclaimed it was the biggest bass she had ever caught!

A short time later I watched as Kelly slowly reeled up a nice bass in the 3-pound class. The fish came to the top, leaped out of the water and threw the bait right back at her, I chuckled and said, “Kelly once a bass grabs your bait you have to set the hook, otherwise they will just hold it and then spit it right back at you!”

A short time later Kelly had another nice fish do the same thing! We both laughed and Kelly said, “I know, set the hook!”

She nailed the next few fish with a quick hook set and had much better luck getting them into the boat.

We had a quick dozen or so fish in an hour and a half and then the bite seemed to die. The school of fish, which were strung from one point to the other just seemed to run out. 

By 11:00 a.m. we had worked our way back to the spillway where Kelly reeled a beauty over 4 pounds! I had a dinner to go to that evening so that seemed like the perfect time to call it a day!

Then last Saturday Kelly said she wanted numbers of fish, so I took her to Lake McClure. I had all my usual baits along but I had thrown in a couple 50 packs of 1001B Keeper 6” worms. My brain said some of the fish should be off the spawn and ready to eat minnows by now.

We started out fishing on the old train track bed at the south ramp and worked our way to the tunnel.

The fish didn’t want my Keeper 082 red and green flake bait but they were jumping on Kelly’s 1001B with  chartreuse tail.

She was kicking my tail and it didn’t take me long to switch to a 1001B on a purple jig head so I could catch up.

Once the sun got on the water the fish slowed on the chartreuse tail bait and seemed to want the plain 1001B worm. The purple jig head was also a key as it gave the bait a uniform look.

That’s one thing I do with my dart heads especially on my two favorite baits the Keeper 082 red flake with a red dart head and the 1001B with a purple dart head.

If you want to test this theory try it with a buddy and see who catches the most fish. My bet is on the guy with the coordinated baits especially in gin clear water!

The local sheriffs patrol said it was a slow day, but he said with a smile, “then again you know bass fishermen.”  Since he was a bass fisherman too I gave him a few baits to try with some matching dart heads. I noticed he looked over what I was throwing and how it was rigged real close, so he shouldn’t have any trouble catching fish on his next day off!

The bite I think is going to start tapering off as the heat starts climbing higher and higher but there is one thing for sure if you don’t go after them you’re not going to catch them.

Kelly had a ball on what figured to be a 40 fish day. I couldn’t believe what a great day it was on the lake and there was very little traffic to speak of, considering it was a holiday weekend.