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MOTHER NATURE AT HER
FINEST!
By: Ron Wilson
March 21, 2006.... The last couple of
week's have been spent fishing and during that time
California has been
blessed with plenty of Mother Nature at her finest! I haven’t seen
weather like this since I left Idaho many moons ago.
It all started
on Saturday the 11th when I awoke and watched the weather tell me it
wasn’t fit for man or beast on the water. But nobody ever accused me of
being the sharpest tack in the box so around 7 a.m. I hooked up the
boat, got everything ready and called my son Donald.
We arrived at lake Don Pedro to see snow all
over Flemming Meadows. We looked at the beauty of the fresh snow as we
had breakfast in the truck.
After about an hour I figured what the heck
lets get dressed up for this and put the boat in the water and go try to
catch a fish. I wanted to have some idea what was happening before I
fished the Nor-Cal Bass Pro-Am.
Donald put me in the water just as it started
hailing real hard. I wasn’t looking forward to this! Donald came down
and we putted out to the 5 mile buoys and put the bass tracker up on pad
and headed for the cover of the mountains.
I gave Donald a couple rods rigged up with
Keeper worms and told him that I had several Keeper 082 styles and
flakes that I wanted to try out to see if they would work, 100 yards of
bank with no action. Donald picked up the other rod and after a couple
cast with it he set the hook and came back with no worm. "You have to
give the fish some time to eat it," I said, "your reflexes are way to
fast."
I switched baits and was soon into my first
fish, but it jumped and threw the bait back at me. The new hooks I have
been using usually don’t let a fish do that, I guess maybe if I had set
the hook harder it would not of happened.
A couple casts later and a nice 3 pounder was
put in the boat. Donald was next with a 2 ½ pounder. The fish were right
where I thought they would be. We put 4 fish in the boat and then a
couple guys came up that were fishing a tournament so I pulled off the
bank and let them fish through.
 I
went to the other side of the cove where they had come from and Donald
soon put a 2 pound spot in the boat. This one definitely was going home
for dinner! I can’t understand why some guys would take spotted bass
from
Lake McClure and transplant them in Don Pedro, that’s just plum stupid,
but then again I can’t ever recall
anyone saying that fishermen were smart to begin with. Heck look at me
and Donald out there fishing in the snow, rain and hail!
We boated a few more fish before deciding
to call it a day around 2:00 pm. I'd learned enough to give me the
confidence for the Nor-Cal Pro-Am that would follow the next weekend.
Finally
Saturday arrived and I was excited to be paired with Robin Lowe,
(Mr. Super Pork), to fish the 3rd Nor-Cal Bass Tournament of the year.
Robin had been so busy making baits that he
had very little time to pre-fish. But he did manage to get up and find a
few one afternoon. After my trip with Donald I knew the bite was an easy
one as the fish were on the bank and it was my style of fishing,
darthead!
We blasted off and headed to 1st bay and a
spot that was known for big fish. Robin worked the area over with a swim
bait while I used a darthead and a Keeper1058 six inch worm with no
luck. I couldn't believe I wasn’t able to catch a fish it was so easy
pre-fishing with my son Donald and I had several 3 pound plus fish!
After a half hour Robin moved over toward the
nudist camp area and he switched to a 1050 Keeper worm Carolina style. I
threw out the darthead and laid the pole down and retied another rod and
when I picked up the slack in the line a 3 pounder was there. "At least
we had the skunk off the boat," I told Robin, "I can't believe how tough
it has gotten since last weekend."
We worked over an island top with no luck and
then down an island bank where I scratched out another
largemouth and Robin put a keeper smalley in the boat.
I took Robin to a couple spots where Donald
and I pounded them but nobody was home. I had been watching
the depth finder and noticed that the fish seemed to have pulled off the
bank and suspended. Maybe dropshotting would be the ticket. I suggest it
to Robin, but also told him that I hated it! Don’t know why I just do.
Robin headed back to the nudist colony area
and caught Keeper number four, a nice largemouth in the 3 pound class. I
then connected with a smalley that we couldn’t cull! Talk about a
frustrating day!
I worked the bump table at the weigh-in and
could see that we weren't the only ones who struggled. There were
several bags less then the five-fish limit brought to the scales.
However there were also several nice bags that put our 11 pound bag way
back in the pack.
You can check out the results and pictures at
Nor-Cal Bass
website. |
