Hatch
05-09-2012, 07:35 PM
With the incredible spring weather finally here, it is tough to decide where to target striped bass in Northern California. Today I had two Kiene's regulars on board. Mar C and Sam Y. Both are excellent casters and regulars to the "striper on the fly game." The decision was made to target the fish up in the rivers and not the Delta. Well, as usual, I made them get up ridiculously early and meet me at 4:30. We headed north and were the second boat on the water fishing at first light. We had no wind, perfect water temp, great visibility, great gear, really good casters, good conversation, breakfast burritos, no crowds---- No F'n fish----not a single grab for 3 hours. I was feeling bad for them and bad for me. The only thing worse than going fishing and not catching fish is bragging how great spring striper fishing is to someone and then getting skunked. I have to say that the two of them handled our morning failure with absolute class. Both of them kept saying, "That's fishing sometimes." That is true, but it still stinks. We went down river and we went up river and we fished all of my "good" spots. Nada!! Well, drastic times called for drastic measures. We went for a long run and fished an area where I had found a few fish over a month ago. We set up for our drift and Mar got a small fish on the first cast and the skunk was gone. We continued on and had a pick bite for an hour and a half. Taking turns catching some smallish fish. Then we saw some surface activity and Mar, even with his inferior eyewear, spotted a group of fish that we thought were carp, but then discovered were a large school of good stripers. Well, all I can say is that all hell broke loose and my two anglers were into stripers like I have rarely seen. Boom. Fish on every or every other cast. Doubles!!. Small ones, medium ones, and some largish ones. We were into 'em big time. They demanded that I grab a rod and join in on the blitz. That was really cool, and I wasn't going to say no to that. We took turns casting, stripping, and catching for a solid hour. What an absolute blast we had. We ended up with 5 triples!!! Too many doubles to count. Fifty plus fish to the boat with 3 fish that were over 10 lbs. and so many missed grabs it was hard to believe. We had a great afternoon. When the guide catches a dozen fish, you know it was an epic day! My boat was a mess with rods, bogas, pliers, tippet spools, fly boxes, water bottles, and other gear all over the place. Holy crap it was fun. One of my best days on the water for sure. Sam and Mar are great guys, amazing anglers and class acts. Welcome on my boat any day. Thanks to both of you.
HATCH
HATCH