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PEDRO FISH ARE ON!
By: Ron Wilson
January 18, 2010.... This is the time of
year I love waterfowl hunting, however there are days when it is too
foggy to even see them if they were flying on the east side of the
valley and that's the time I then grab my trout gear and head to
Lake Don Pedro to fish for trout.
Once the lakes turn over most of the fish
go shallow. At this time of year a lure trolled a couple hundred feet
behind the boat is dynamite.
The reason that you troll so far back is
because the fish are shallow and when you go over them you spook them
and they do deeper and out away from the boat. The lure is so far back
that when it comes by them they will usually strike it if its what they
are looking for to eat and the reason for the long distance behind the
boat is they have a chance to settle down and relax.
Last week I had a foggy day and called my
friend Harold Willey and we headed to lake Don Pedro. On the way through
Waterford the fog was still laying on the ground but as we neared La
Grange it was lifting and by the time we arrived at Blue oaks Launch
ramp the sun was shinning brightly.
We launched the boat and the battery was
dead! Now in Harold's defense it has been quite a while since he has
went fishing as his wife had cancer and has been having a terrible time
recovering for several months now and Harold has been home taking care
of Coralee.
Needless to say his boat was filthy and
being mister clean Harold washed his boat and while doing so he had
cleaned his controls and left some of the buttons pushed down and this
led to a dead cranking battery. No biggy as he also had a trolling
battery on board so all we had to do was hook it up and we were off and
running.
We made our way back toward Rogers Creek
arm and started trolling. I like this area as its one of the many areas
where the sun shines on the water first. I guess the fish like the
morning warmth like we do as they were there jumping.
I started off with lures that worked last
year but the fish didn't seem to want them. We had two lead core rods
out with 3 colors out and a top line 200 feet behind the boat.
 For
the first hour I changed lure after lure until I finally found one that
got hit. It was a small Ex-Cel Lure that had a splash of red on the
head, a blackish back with a shad pattern stomach. I had two short
strikes on that lure and then I asked Harold what speed he was doing. "I
got her set on 1,100 RPM's just like last year Ron." I said lets slow
lulu bell down to 900 rpm and see what happens. A hundred yards later
and fish on, a nice 18 inch silver leaping, drag screaming trout! Harold
had a ball reeling it in and you could see the appreciation on his face
from the long fishless drought he had been on.
We had a pattern and the lures to make it
happen and we put them to work on all the rods. It was fast action for
an hour and then it went dead with flat calm water on the lake.
An hour and a half later the water
started to riffle with a breeze and the bite came on again and we soon
had limits of trout with 4 in the 18 inch class and a couple keeper bass
up to 3 1/2 pounds for lunch. With Coralee home on her own it was time
for us to head home.
Back at the ramp there was trout all over
the water in schools. I guess they had unloaded a truck full of trout at
the ramp and boy were they nice sized fish. I saw lots of them in the 14
to 17 inch size and Harold said he saw a couple bigger ones come out
from under the boat dock when I went and got the truck.
"Damn Harold", I said, "here we travel
all that distance to catch trout when we could of saved our gas and
stayed at the dock and caught them". We laughed together as we had had
a great mornings fishing.
Once back at Harold's house Coralee was
doing just fine and came out to see our catch. Boy they are nice she
said unfortunately she won't be eating any of them for awhile until she
retrains herself to chew and swallow again.
Harold and I can only image what she is
going through but we try to give her as much encouragement as we can.
The fishing at lake Don Pedro is good, go get them. |
