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CAMANCHE IS LOW BUT THE
FISH ARE STILL BITING
By: Ron Wilson
June 24, 2008.... I recently took Ken
Moore of Ripon to
Lake Camanche for some trout action. We went through
the usual boat check at 5:30 a.m. and headed to the boat ramp at North
Shore. The lake is about as low as I have ever seen it. After launching
at the one lane ramp I headed toward Hat Island and was surprised at how
many more mine tailings on the lake that were now out of water.
I shut down just past Hat Island and
started trolling toward the dam in 70 feet of water. The first pole
that went off was a dodger with a orange fire tiger hoochie. A nice
pound plus fish. Before Ken could get that one in another rod with an
Ex-Cel fire tiger lure went off. Ken said, "you’re the man a double in
less than 5 minutes". That was nice to get the skunk off but I wanted
one in the 5 pound range. I guess fishermen are like guys looking for
gold no matter what size the nugget they find there after an even bigger
one.
We headed toward a honey hole that I had
found on an earlier trip but the water there was only about 25 feet deep
now, so I headed back toward the river channel out from Hat Island. We
boated 3 more trout and lost a couple. It seemed that the main thing was
to have the lures at 30 to 45 feet on the wire and preferably with a
dodger in front of it. I guess the low water made the fish hungry even
though there was a full moon all night.
I saw one of the rods bend double and the
line headed out as the fish took off for god knows where. "That’s the
one we're after", I told Ken. Ken got up and pulled the rod out of the
rod holder with the fish still taking drag and then suddenly the fish
came unbuttoned.
I looked at the lure when he brought it
in. The hook was razor-sharp for a good hook set so I don’t know what
went wrong. I know one thing he hit so hard that he knocked most of the
blue off the lure. We continued with the slow pace in the area and
limited by 10 a.m.
I asked Ken if he wanted to go after
black bass. He said its early we might as well. I told him I was in the
mood for some black bass to eat so we headed over near Little Hat to
fish the rock walls. I put on a 6 inch Keeper 1050 and was quickly
rewarded with a 2 pound fish. We beat the rocks and beach area
for awhile with just another shaker in the next hour.
 I
fixed Ken up with a 4 inch cinnamon senko and told him to toss it at the
rocks. On his first cast he had one try to take his pole away and after
a short battle he lost it. He looked at me like what happened and I said
you have to set hard to get the hook in them. I put another bass in the
boat and then another shaker and then Ken missed another one.
I made a short move to more rocks and put
another 3 pound bass and tossed back another shaker. With the sun baking
down and having all the fish we needed for a good dinner or two we
decided to call it a day.
At the cleaning station I filleted the
fish and about half the trout were holdovers with nice pink meat. All
the trout had parasites on them but once you fillet them they are nice
and clean as the parasites are only on the skin. |
