Tony Buzolich
03-11-2009, 10:44 PM
Yesterday, was just tooooooooo beautiful of a day stay home. The forecast was for a cold morning with a slight breeze but sunny all day long, and it was.
My buddy Bill and I left Yuba City around 5:30AM and headed south. We'd been hearing reports of high muddy water everywhere but thought we might do a little looking around anyway.
Sometimes if you can find an area with little or no currant the water will settle a little more than on main stem channel areas. Quiet waters, slow moving areas and dead end sloughs. Sometimes too these waters are a degree or two warmer than surrounding waters and this helps the metabolisms of the life there become more active. (kind of sounds real scientific huh!)
As we got to the ramp the sun was just getting light but we could actually see a foot or two down the pavement into the water. Yaaa! this is great. Much better than what we'd been hearing reports of.
We take off and as we're idleing out in to the main slough we see a large boil directly in from of us. Completely not ready for any action this quick we fumble for our rods still in their holder and make a few quick casts to no avail. But, we saw a boil, and that is enough to get us excited.
We head downstream a ways to where several sloughs merge and the tide is just beginning to fall. Perfect timing. Moving water and the sun is barely up. We move the boat upcurrant a ways and kill the motor letting the water move us back along and over a nice slot in the channel.
I make two or three casts and quickly get a strong grab. Yahooo, this is going to be a great day. The fish is pulling hard, really hard, and staying down. Geez, this is great. It's definitely not a little fish but I haven't seen him yet and he's staying down. That's always a good sign of a bigger fish. After several minutes of playing tug-of-war he finally comes up and in to the net. A nice strong 10-12lber.
We drift a few more yards across a small flat and now Bill hooks up with his first striper of the day. A little smaller but still an incredibly strong fish.
We move the boat back upstream several more times and repeat the same drift picking up a couple more fish as we pass the flat and channel area.
With the tide picking up we decide to head farther upcurrant and check out some of our other favorites spots while the water is still moving.
Beautiful day, the sun is up, the fish are biting, and only a slight breeze. What more could a guy ask for? Well, there's another old saying that says something like,"you never leave a good spot and hope somewhere else is better?" Unfortunately, that's exactly what we did.
We hit all of our usual spots with absolutely nothing. No birds showing, no blips on the fish finder, no big grabs, nothing. We stay at this for the next several hours and only pick up one more striper and a small black bass. Ughhhhh.
We decide to get out and head to a completely different area and see if we can find some feeding fish, or at least a few marks on the screen, or birds or something.
But, it wasn't meant to be, we should have stayed with first school we found a while longer. It was a great day anyway and good to just get out of the house. Sometimes it pays to move and explore a little and other times hind-site is crystal clear.
With no rain in the forecast and warming temperatures for the rest of the week things should just keep getting better.
My buddy Bill and I left Yuba City around 5:30AM and headed south. We'd been hearing reports of high muddy water everywhere but thought we might do a little looking around anyway.
Sometimes if you can find an area with little or no currant the water will settle a little more than on main stem channel areas. Quiet waters, slow moving areas and dead end sloughs. Sometimes too these waters are a degree or two warmer than surrounding waters and this helps the metabolisms of the life there become more active. (kind of sounds real scientific huh!)
As we got to the ramp the sun was just getting light but we could actually see a foot or two down the pavement into the water. Yaaa! this is great. Much better than what we'd been hearing reports of.
We take off and as we're idleing out in to the main slough we see a large boil directly in from of us. Completely not ready for any action this quick we fumble for our rods still in their holder and make a few quick casts to no avail. But, we saw a boil, and that is enough to get us excited.
We head downstream a ways to where several sloughs merge and the tide is just beginning to fall. Perfect timing. Moving water and the sun is barely up. We move the boat upcurrant a ways and kill the motor letting the water move us back along and over a nice slot in the channel.
I make two or three casts and quickly get a strong grab. Yahooo, this is going to be a great day. The fish is pulling hard, really hard, and staying down. Geez, this is great. It's definitely not a little fish but I haven't seen him yet and he's staying down. That's always a good sign of a bigger fish. After several minutes of playing tug-of-war he finally comes up and in to the net. A nice strong 10-12lber.
We drift a few more yards across a small flat and now Bill hooks up with his first striper of the day. A little smaller but still an incredibly strong fish.
We move the boat back upstream several more times and repeat the same drift picking up a couple more fish as we pass the flat and channel area.
With the tide picking up we decide to head farther upcurrant and check out some of our other favorites spots while the water is still moving.
Beautiful day, the sun is up, the fish are biting, and only a slight breeze. What more could a guy ask for? Well, there's another old saying that says something like,"you never leave a good spot and hope somewhere else is better?" Unfortunately, that's exactly what we did.
We hit all of our usual spots with absolutely nothing. No birds showing, no blips on the fish finder, no big grabs, nothing. We stay at this for the next several hours and only pick up one more striper and a small black bass. Ughhhhh.
We decide to get out and head to a completely different area and see if we can find some feeding fish, or at least a few marks on the screen, or birds or something.
But, it wasn't meant to be, we should have stayed with first school we found a while longer. It was a great day anyway and good to just get out of the house. Sometimes it pays to move and explore a little and other times hind-site is crystal clear.
With no rain in the forecast and warming temperatures for the rest of the week things should just keep getting better.