Amador Monday / the boat planes!

[Mike Churchill]

Finally launched the Gregor today with the outboard installed. (1972 12 footer w/a refurbed transom and a 2005 8-horse Merc 4-stroke).

Joy--she planes (with just me aboard). I think it hit around 15 or 17 mph. :D

So, I have transportation for the Delta. Now I just need some rods heavier than 5-wts. :oops:

As to Amador--cool and overcast, windy with occasional showers. Finally found a school of fish around 1:00. Hooked 5 in five trips past the hot spot and landed 4. Typically nice Donaldson Cutbows from 18 to about 22 inches.

I don't know what they feed those things, but they have the hottest planted trout I have ever seen. :)

Mike


The one downer today was that Scott V. woke up sick and wasn't able to join me.
:(

[Mike Churchill]

Almost forgot: the other downer was snapping my floating line while trying to stretch out the kinks when I switched rods after about 45 minutes. :oops:

I'm trying to remember what kind of line that was. I recall buying it on sale at Kiene's last summer.

I guess it didn't turn out to be as good a deal as I thought. :(

Oh well, I guess I need to go shopping.

Mike

[Ed Wahl]

Glad to hear the rig is running. Just out of curiousity, how did you find the fish at Amador to start with? Spot rises, blindly trolling or casting?
You snapped a fly line? :oops: What are you the incredible hulk? :roll: Ed

[andanb]

I went there again this Sunday. It was slow ended up with 9 landed. I have found the fish along shorelines in coves that have some structure submerged trees and shallow flats 8-10 ft. (These are few at amador). I find fish on the graph shallow and assume they are trout at this time of year and start fishing. I usually see some surface activity in the shallows for active fish.

I almost forgot the most important thing...I use a 24 ft. sink tip line 6 ips with a size 8 weighted (lead wire) bead head black wooly bugger with crystal flash in black, red or olive.

I don't think a floating line presents the fly at the best depth 3-6 ft.

[Mike Churchill]

Ed,

Since I don't have a fish finder yet, I found them by working a lot of water blind casting. Normally at Amador you see fish rolling on the surface from time to time, but there were none up top yesterday.

The particular location I found fish yesterday was in a gap of 30 or so feet between bushes on a partially submerged island. (Water level is up about 10 feet from New Years and a small island is currently surrounded by bush remains sticking up out of the water.) It looked fishy, so I worked all around the island, casting near or between bushes until I started getting hits.

I was using an unweighted bugger on an intermediate line. I have caught fish at Amador on weighted buggers fished on a floater, weighted and unweighted buggers on an intermediate, and unweighted buggers on a type 6 sink tip.

Visibility was around 3-6 feet and the water is a bit off-color from runoff, but not terrible. (As of yesterday, anyway.)

Before I launched, I did talk to a guy who said he had caught a whole bunch on Sunday fishing an olive bugger two feet below a cast-a-bubble in the back of one of the arms. When I went to the spot he suggested, the only thing I found were two river otters--one of which had a nice fish in his jaws. :shock:

Mike

[andanb]

I know the arm you are talking about...those otters were everywhere. That area was also loaded with fish, tough they were a bit lockjawed this week. Last week my friend and I caught 34 in that inlet. I just caught 4 or 5 there Sunday. I caught the remainder in another cove with a similar feel to it.

[HC]

Mike, I am impressed that your boat planes with the 8 hp motor. This will indeed open up new fishing opportunities that only a wife could regret. Tight lines.

[Mike Churchill]

Made another trip out to Amador on Saturday to officially test the boat and motor combo with two aboard.

The (no surprise) bad news is: it won't plane with two adults.

The good new is: it still gets up and runs pretty well--probably around 10 mph or so. Running into the wind, the guy in the stern gets quite a bit of spray, so we were glad we were dressed for rain.

Weather was much better than expected: dry all day, if a bit windy, and comfortably warm (mid-50's all day).

Unfortunately, the fish did not cooperate. I had three hits but no hookups.
My buddy Gene didn't even get a hit. :(

We couldn't decide which one of us had worse luck. While I at least confirmed there are fish in the lake, I missed 'em all. :oops:

Fishing was very slow for everyone we talked to (which was a pretty small crowd--the weather report scared most folks away).

Water was 48 degrees, off-color and about 4 or 5 feet of visibility. Only a few bait dunkers caught more than a couple of fish each.

The best part was when it went calm and beautiful at 4:15 and stayed that way until dark. We even saw a few rises but couldn't tempt a fish with anything--and we tried everything from buggers in lots of colors to nymphs, a small clouser, some dries, and even an Umpqua Swimming Frog.
:?

All in all, it qualified as a really good day of fishing with no catching at all.

Mike