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WET & WILD KICKOFF TO THE
BASS FISHING SEASON!
By: Ron Wilson
January 29, 2006.... Escalon's Alvin Borba and
I were teamed up to fish the first Nor-Cal Pro-Am event of the year
which was held at Lake McClure.
As usual it rained cats and dogs during check
in. By the time I had done all the boat live well checks my rain jacket
was soaked. Funny but every time I raised my arms water ran down the
sleeves. I had to borrow another jacket before blast off time.
Once I was in the boat with Alvin he laid out
the game plan. He had fish all the way up river on bridge pilings. I had
not heard this. All my information was that the fish were shallow and my
dart head setups should be the ticket!
Keeper 1059 was supposed to be the plastic of
choice for spots in the 3 pound class but I could not get them to bite
at the pilings.
Alvin hit the banks and we fished a 100 yards
of it with no luck. I watched the guy who ended up winning the event
behind us pick up a fish near the bank after we had fished it.
I knew that I didn’t have the right bait for
the area and needed to change. About that time Alvin said, "time to
move", and we headed back to the Horseshoe Bend area and a steep wall. I
put on a brown with a chartreuse tail Keeper senko style bait and threw
to the bank. The bait fell to about 10 feet deep and I felt a tick.
"About time", I thought. He I had fished a good hour plus without a
single nibble. I set the hook and Alvin soon netted a nice spotted bass
in the 3 pound class. "At least the first one was a nice one", I
thought.
As the wind blew us off this area, Alvin made
another move to a protected cove. We started fishing the creek channel
with a swim bait. He had a bite but the fish didn’t take it!
I switched to a shad pattern senko and on my
first cast had one pick it up. I set the hook but the fish came off
right at the boat! I guess I gave it one of those half ass hook sets and
that’s why I got zip for my poor effort!
Alvin moved on out of the cove following the
creek channel and when he came to a tapered wind blown rocky point I
made three casts and caught three fish! "The fish are shallow", I
informed him. I guess he didn’t hear as he continued on out following
the channel where he started dropshotting. He caught a couple fish but
they wouldn’t help us.
Alvin’s next move was back to McClure point
north boat ramp area where the wind was howling and the waves
were in the 4 foot class. Heck we needed an ocean boat to fish the area!
Alvin said he had caught a nice fish in the
area during practice. He continued throwing swim baits and dropshotting
deep water. I put on a brown jig with an 082 Keeper Craw and pitched it
as close to the bank as I could get it and when I drug it to about 10
feet of water I got a thump and set the hook on another bass for the
live well.
With the hail and rain pounding us along with
the wind Alvin decided a quieter area would give him a much needed
break. We headed back into the canyon. In a quiet cove Alvin started
dragging a Carolina rig and picking up a fish or two.
I pitched out my dart head with a
brown-chartreuse worm into deep water and then started pulling fish from
the livewell so we could cull them. Alvin picked out the 5 biggest and
as I put them back in the livewell I noticed my rod twitching. I grabbed
it and set the hook and the fish just bowed my rod over and started
pulling drag before it buried itself in some brush! Darn here we
had looked all over the lake to find that 4 pounder to put us in the
money and I let him snag me up! The fish would not come out so I just
busted the line and retied to try again.
The whole day the hail, rain and lighting was
an awesome show and somewhat scary at times! Alvin headed back to
Horseshoe Bend and the lightning and thunder just rolled overhead. At
one point there was so much electricity in the air that when I threw
out, my line just stayed in a big arch skyward.
By now it was almost time to head for weigh-in
and it just wasn’t meant for us to cash a paycheck that day as I had
lost a good fish and Alvin had 4 bites on a swimbait without connecting
on any of them.
It was another one of those fishing days we
really don’t like, especially when we head out to go catching! I was
surprised to find that we had a solid limit of 12.70 pounds good enough
for a check and a tie for 9th place. Nice solid bag of fish we just
needed that 4 pounder to get us to the top! |
