May 23, 2006.... Lake Camanche is my favorite lake to fish for black bass. Mullies, Spots, Florida's and Northern Largemouth are plentiful. You can almost always figure out a pattern to catch one of the species without to much trouble and sometimes all of them.

Diana and I arrived at a little past 3:30 a.m. to find most of the contestants drinking coffee and eating donuts furnished by Chris Cantwell, the local head cheese at the park for EBMUD. Only kidding Chris, but you have done one heck of a job over the years. Getting them PR and your dedication to the Lake and its facilities, etc. All the contestants really appreciated the goodies you gave at their arrival.

For Nor-Cal's fourth tournament of the year I was paired with Jason Remmers of Valley Springs. Jason said we should have a fun filled day. He had done his homework and was pretty sure we could catch a nice limit on swimbaits.

I had a L.A. Slider trout bait that I had purchased from Glory Hole Sports. I had Lake Camanche in mind as I knew the bass had to be having a diet of trout as there are tons of them planted in the lake every year.

Blast off time came and we headed upriver to a weed bed where Jason saw some kicker bass eating perch the
day before.

Jason scored first with a 3 pounder, but it threw the hook back at him. Jason said, "Ron we will lose quite a few fish today as I haven't figured out a sure way to keep a solid hook set on them yet."

I tossed out along the weed bed and was bringing it along the edge when I saw water rising in a "V" towards where my bait was traveling from deep water. My rod bowed and I set the hook. "Net, a big one", I yelled. I pumped and reeled keeping a tight line and when I got the fish about half way back to the boat she turned and spit the hook. Talk about a letdown, Jason said "don't let that bother you Ron, next time tighten your drag down more and just set the hook and reel as fast as you can to get the fish into the net."

Jason boated a 2 pounder and showed me how it was down and then a 3 ½ pounder nailed my bait and I skied him to the net! "That's the way to do it", Jason said. I then lost two more good fish while Jason put a smaller fish in the boat before we left that spot. Jason showed me a 4 pounder on a bed that never fell for our baits. He said, "we'll try this one on the way back from my milk run."

We switched from crank baits, jerk baits and worms back to swim baits with some success. 1.6 pound fish, 1.7 pound fish again and again and when I boated a 1.8 pounder at 2:30 I told Jason we needed to add a lot of weight in a hurry if we were going to make a check.

With 1 hour to go Jason moved to a wind blown cove and tossed out his swimbait and his rod doubled over! A few
cranks and the fish was off, "darn", he said, "I cant believe all the bad luck we've had today, we have lost enough big bass to win any tournament on this lake and all we have is 11 pounds or so in the boat." Jason laughed and made another cast with his swim bait and a couple cranks and his rod bowed and a 7 pound plus bass cleared the water!

I grabbed the net and kneeled down next to him and asked which side you want me on, Jason said the other side as the bass took off in front of the boat! I managed to net it back by the console, tossed out our 1.8 pound small fish and dropped the big bass in the live well with out giving Jason a good look at her!

A quick high five and then it was back to tossing swim baits as we knew we needed another good keeper fish to
win the event. We figured at least a 20 pound bag or bigger would be needed.

We threw the baits for the next half hour without success but were happy to have what we had in the live well, considering how many good bass we had farmed.  We could have had a 25 to 30 pound bag but ended up with
a 17 ½ pound bag, good for 5th place!

I know if the dog hadn't stopped  he would of caught the rabbit! Hey that's almost like this fishing story or like they say there are 3 kinds of bass, small ones, medium ones and the ones that got away!

I had a great day on the water with Jason and learned a few things too!

I recommend Lake Camanche for catching fish as its fishery is one of the best in the valley. For more information on the lake visit their site at www.camanchereacreation.com.