Tony Buzolich
05-03-2011, 06:14 PM
For the last few days I've been having some engine trouble on my boat. It runs fine above 3000 rpm but rough below that and I hestitate to take anyone out with even the slightest doubt about safety on water.
So, what do you do? You take your best friends out and hope nothing happens along the way. Well, yesterday I took my good buddy Bill out nice and early thinking we were going to pound them. Yep, got to the spot in the dark, made one false cast, and snap-shutter wham, my new *** ******** line goes flying into the bushes or the water or somewhere and I'm left hold only the running line in my hand. Damn! Glad I brought a back-up but the day isn't starting off very well.
We work the area hard without even a tap so we move. Still nothing, so we move again, and then again and now it's daylight and still not even a single bump. That's the way it is sometimes until you find them. After several hours Bill finally hooks up a nice fish in about a foot of water that takes off like a bonefish. They can't go down so they go sideways fast. We finally found a small bunch of cooperating fish and ended the morning fairly well but we had to work for them. On the way back we spotted our first bunch of spawning fish busting the surface. Water temperature was 54 degrees at 10:30AM. A bit cold for them to spawn but if you're horny enough the cold doesn't seem to matter.
Today I'm on the water with Jim May using his boat. Knowing my boat is questionable until it's fixed we decide to take his. We hit a nice wall of fast moving water and get a double hookup within the first or second cast. Yahoo, this is a lot better than the previous day. We get the fish in (both nice six pounders) and continue our drift downstream. A few more casts and we both hook up again :) ANOTHER DOUBLE, and then a single. And we've only been on the water 15 minutes. GEEEEZ what a great start to the day!
We keep moving and keep hooking up and these are not dink fish. It's only 6:30 in the morning and we've already got 18 striped bass between us with only a couple of fish that were under legal size.
What's going on? These have to be new fish that have moved in over night and they're HUNGRY. We're using totally different flies and it didn't seem to matter, they were hitting whatever we threw at them. Actually, we both used the same flies all day and didn't loose a single fly. That's amazing because of all the snags and dredging we do.
The morning kept on like this for the next couple of hours until Jim had to go to work. How many fish did we get? I'm not going to say, but, I will say we had nine double hook- ups with fish up to twelve pounds and 75% of those were legal size and better.
On the way we saw another group of spawning stripers boiling on the surface. Water temp. today is still cold at 56 degrees but they're going at it.
If you haven't gotten over to the SAC yet it's hot when you find them and the water is clearing up nicely. As for my boat, I'm out of commission for a while until my new motor comes in a week or so.:)
See ya out there, TONY
So, what do you do? You take your best friends out and hope nothing happens along the way. Well, yesterday I took my good buddy Bill out nice and early thinking we were going to pound them. Yep, got to the spot in the dark, made one false cast, and snap-shutter wham, my new *** ******** line goes flying into the bushes or the water or somewhere and I'm left hold only the running line in my hand. Damn! Glad I brought a back-up but the day isn't starting off very well.
We work the area hard without even a tap so we move. Still nothing, so we move again, and then again and now it's daylight and still not even a single bump. That's the way it is sometimes until you find them. After several hours Bill finally hooks up a nice fish in about a foot of water that takes off like a bonefish. They can't go down so they go sideways fast. We finally found a small bunch of cooperating fish and ended the morning fairly well but we had to work for them. On the way back we spotted our first bunch of spawning fish busting the surface. Water temperature was 54 degrees at 10:30AM. A bit cold for them to spawn but if you're horny enough the cold doesn't seem to matter.
Today I'm on the water with Jim May using his boat. Knowing my boat is questionable until it's fixed we decide to take his. We hit a nice wall of fast moving water and get a double hookup within the first or second cast. Yahoo, this is a lot better than the previous day. We get the fish in (both nice six pounders) and continue our drift downstream. A few more casts and we both hook up again :) ANOTHER DOUBLE, and then a single. And we've only been on the water 15 minutes. GEEEEZ what a great start to the day!
We keep moving and keep hooking up and these are not dink fish. It's only 6:30 in the morning and we've already got 18 striped bass between us with only a couple of fish that were under legal size.
What's going on? These have to be new fish that have moved in over night and they're HUNGRY. We're using totally different flies and it didn't seem to matter, they were hitting whatever we threw at them. Actually, we both used the same flies all day and didn't loose a single fly. That's amazing because of all the snags and dredging we do.
The morning kept on like this for the next couple of hours until Jim had to go to work. How many fish did we get? I'm not going to say, but, I will say we had nine double hook- ups with fish up to twelve pounds and 75% of those were legal size and better.
On the way we saw another group of spawning stripers boiling on the surface. Water temp. today is still cold at 56 degrees but they're going at it.
If you haven't gotten over to the SAC yet it's hot when you find them and the water is clearing up nicely. As for my boat, I'm out of commission for a while until my new motor comes in a week or so.:)
See ya out there, TONY