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SHARING TIME WITH OLD
FRIENDS
By: Ron Wilson
July 21, 200.... For the last week I have
been fishing New Melones Reservoir day and night. I started last Sunday
with friend Mike Monschein and Bruce Hamby. The day was pretty much
teaching Mike the ropes on how to fish for kokanee.
Reeling them in, baits, fishing lures,
corn scents downrigger variations on the cannons, etc. Too much stuff
for Mike to sink his teeth in but enough to give him ideas on what to do
once his boat is set up.
The kokes were down around 80 feet out in
front of the dam and they wanted green apexes. Mike had a ball reeling
in his limit for fish from 1.6 to 2 pounds. Bigger ones are being caught
but not by us. It was a great learning day for Mike.
Later in the week Harold Wiley and I hit
the lake again for some afternoon bassin, some crappie fishing and then
a night of fishing for trout under the lights at the dam.
 We
started our afternoon of fishing up toward the 49er bridge and started
picking up bass right away. Harold used a Keeper 094 6 inch worm while I
stuck to my 1050 crawdad pattern. Lots of spotted bass in the lake and
they had a terrific hatch this year as there are 6 inch spotted bass all
over the lake in schools.
Around
4 p.m. we headed to the marina and the nearby tires to see if we
could entice a crappie to bite. Nobody was hungry at the time so we
headed back to the dam to check out the bass fishing and get ready to
set up for the evening
trout fishing.We
saw a doe and her two fawns feeding as we fished down the bank. We were
catching small spotted bass with an occasional largemouth to 3 ½ pounds.
About an hour before dark Harold's new
Crestliner boat seat broke so we set up early. We got our anchor set and
here comes 3
pontoon boats to fish for trout at night also. I asked Harold
what the hell did you do tell the whole world what we were doing. He
said no Ron I never told anyone. Well I told a few people and I know he
did too so if they told a few people then the word spread real quick.
Like they say word of mouth is the best advertisement you can get.
We were using red and white crappie jigs.
There is a secret to catching the trout on these baits you throw them
out as far as you can and let them sink back to the boat. Don’t know why
as we have yet to catch a trout on the fall. Once the jig is under the
boat you start shaking the rod tip up and down an inch or two making the
jig dance in the water and at the same time you slowly, very slowly real
up as you shake the jig. The trout will come up and bump the jig and
then usually grab it in his mouth at which time you set the hook,
burying the small jig hook in the roof of his mouth.
By 1 a.m. we had a limit of trout and
called it another
great day. It sure has been nice to be fishing with an old friend that I
have known for many years once again. A couple old friends talking about
old times and catching fish, it sure beats working, honey do’s or
sitting at home.
While at the lake we watched a helicopter
do a 180 over the marina and then head off down the lake toward Pedro
and McClure. From the markings it looked presidential so Harold and I
figured it was Bush, Arnold and group looking over the low water in the
reservoir systems as Arnold was probably making his points about how
important the canal he wants to built to siphon off Northern
California’s water supply is.
We chuckled as we reminded each other
that Bush was here just to check out all the fire damage up north. |
