First Hatch Report 5-16-12

[Hatch]

Headed up North today with Kiene's regular, Joe. M. He is a regular on the Bow this season and when he is on the boat I know we are going to have a lot of fun and, a ridicules amount of fly fishing equipment. As usual I made him get up really early and drive far so we could be on the water, at our spot, at first light. We made a short run and were lucky enough to stumble onto some stripers busting bait, on top, in less than a foot of water, near an island. We started throwing small AirHeads on some Rio F/I lines and ripping them in. Joe crushed em' for about a half hour pulling several fish out of the school that, kept moving around from deep water, and back into the shallows. It was awesome to watch and I joined in on the fun with a couple of my own. We landed 10 fish in the malay and farmed a few others. Then they took off and we lost em'.
Time to look for some shad. We ran around and checked several shaddy looking ares and finally found some. Joe had his first shad and we knew that that meant we would eventually have to go find a Smallie for the elusive "Nor Cal Slam" (striper-shad-small mouth) "Nor Cal Super Slam" is when you throw in a steelhead. "Trash Slam" is (pike minnow-suckerfish-shad) My geeky fish friends and I came up with it. And I cleaned up the language a bit.
We searched for some more stripers and found a pair in some clearwater and watched them both eat the fly, very cool to see !! Kept at it for a 1/2 hour longer with no fish and decided to make a run for some water that might have a hungry Small Mouth in it. We fished an area that, in the summer time, has a few fish. Lost a bunch of fly's in the snags and after a while we found one Smallie. It wasn't huge but we were Hoot'n anyway.
On the way home we hit the spot that had produced for us at dawn. I was already prepping to end the day while Joe was making his last few casts. He had a big follow and she ate it within sight, for a second I thought it was an early salmon, but it had stripes. He got her in with his 7 wt. and it was a good tussle. Biggest river fish on my boat this year. 13+ lbs. Super nice fish.
Thanks Joe.
HATCH

[k.hanley]

Way to get after it Hatch. Congrats to Joe!
Cheers, Ken

[Joe Mateas]

I had another awesome day on the bow thanks to good ol' Hatch. I got to see water I have never been on and got to add a new fish(shad) to my list. The morning topwater action was great, and when we came back by and saw how shallow it was there, I was amazed... about a foot deep! Then at the end of the day, making my last couple casts...It was pretty exciting seeing the big one come out , watch my fly, strip, strip.... bam she turned sideways showing her size and engulfing the sexy shad colored clouser all at once, it was on! She put up a good fight on the 7wt, but between me fighting her and Hatch controlling the boat she came to hand without a hitch. I was pretty stoked since it was my biggest Lineside in 2-3 years, and biggest on a fly rod period. This year is my first for fishing Striper up in the rivers so being able to see them come and hit subsurface was pretty cool.

Look at all those rods on the bow.... and to think, I was down two rods that are being repaired, just wait and see what it looks like next week. I don't think you can have too many rigs, my moto has always been, "it's better to have and not need, than to need and not have". Thanks again for another great day on the water Maury, looking forward to next time.