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GET OUT FOR SOME GREAT MOTHERLODE
FISHING
By: Ron Wilson
June 20, 2011.... The Kokanee bite at
New Melones has
been off the wall this year with easy limits for
anglers than know what's going on.
I like to think that I know so I took my first Kokanee trip to
Lake Don Pedro.
There are 3 reasons that I chose Lake Don Pedro to chase these silver
bullets. One is that its closer to home, two is that the Kokanee are
bigger and three is that I have a years pass and with the price of gas I
am trying to save as much of my fishing dollar as I can so I can make
more trips.
Harold Willey of Waterford and I arrived at 6 a.m. and headed to
Jenkins Hill and within 15 minutes Harold was on his first big Koke. The
fish was on a drag screaming run when Harold put to much pressure on the
fish and it tore loose. Retraining time as fishermen seem to forget when
they chase bass to much that you just can't horse in a Kokanee salmon,
they pull to hard.
Harold realized what he had done and fish number 2 was a nice 2
pounder. Now the fishing was slow as we boxed a fish about every half
hour but the size of the Koke's, most in the 2 pound class kept me
working all around the area. The fish were scattered as all heck and we
never did find a school of Koke's to work on. It was just one here and
one there.
The only pattern we had was that the fish were 60 to 70 feet deep OTW.
They wanted watermelon and green dodgers with a orange hoochie and
shoepeg corn soaked in carp spit.
 We
finished our limit by noon and called it a day. Home with the fish
cleaned and ready for the smoker by 2 p.m. The older I get the more I
like the shorter fishing days.
The next day Carl Wagoner of south Modesto and I headed to
Lake Camanche which
is Carl and my favorite lake to fish for bass. The cost and distance
keeps most bass fishermen away, especially the meat hunters so there is
a better population and quality of bass to fish for.
We started off the point at the south shore launch area and Carl used
a brown tube to hook his first fish. I watched as Carl worked the fish
to the boat and the rod just pumped as he reeled it in. When the bass
got about 6 feet from the boat the fish suddenly realized that it was
hooked and saw the boat and came airborne and tossed the bait right back
at Carl. Carl said, "boy I didn't think the fish was that big", I
laughed and said, "all he was doing was following you to the boat as you
reeled him in". I said, "that was to bad Carl as that was a picture fish
that would of weighed a good 5 pounds".
We worked the area over for another 7 or 8 fish up to 4 pounds. The
wind was picking up and it was a time to make a move. I chose a point by
the houseboats. Wind and waves rolling in and the fish were in 6 feet of
water waiting for food to be washing in with the waves.
I changed to a Wright Baits 101O 6 inch worm and it was game on with
both largemouth and spotted bass being caught.
The wind was steadily picking up speed so I headed the boat down a
rocky bank. We had found that almost all our fish were on rocks on
points so I thought that the rocky bank was a good choice. Well I was
wrong as we only caught 3 fish going down a 100 yard section of bank.
Time to move.
I chose another rocky point with the waves rolling in. I had to keep
the trolling motor speed
at 50 percent just to keep it so Carl could fish the sweet spot of rocks
in 8 feet of water.
There was 50 feet of water within 30 feet of the rock shelf we were
fishing and the fish had moved up to feed. Carl had a ball catching
spots and largemouth up to 5 pounds. He was having a good day.
After a dozen bass I moved to the edge of the drop off and Carl set
the hook on the toad we were after. The fish made a drag screaming run
and then pow, the line broke. Damn, Carl has a habit of tightening the
drag on smaller fish to get them in the boat faster and then he forgets
to set the drag again. A couple more break offs like that and I bet he
breaks that habit.
I got tired of fighting the wind and moved on upriver to the rock
piles. Carl wanted to stop on an island top he and Norval Pimentel had
caught a couple fish on it. I stopped and we never got a single bite and
I told Carl that's just because you catch fish there one day does not
mean they are going to be there the next. Fish have tails and they move
in the lake to where the food is.
We moved to another rocky wind blown point and it was game on
again with spotted bass up to 3 and a half pounds. We caught and
released a half dozen and then the fish quit biting. It seems that when
you release a few fish or you go over them with the
trolling motor to
get unsnagged the fish stop biting or move.
We hit a few more spots that Carl had a hard time fishing while I was
having a ball catching 2 pound plus spots.
Carl and I worked our way back out into the lake to find the wind
suddenly dying. I told Carl that I'd had enough for one day. I don't
need to fish from daylight to dark like Norval does to get my fix.
I just have a general idea of how many fish we caught, approximately
25 on the first 4 points we fished. My guess is 40 plus fish in all as I
used up all but 3 of my 30 101O 6 inch Wright Baits and I caught a few
on WB001R that I dyed the tails chartreuse. Just another great day of
bassin at Lake Camanche. |
