Tony Buzolich
06-19-2015, 01:06 PM
A couple of days ago a friend of ours on the water board told us they were really going to drop the flow on the Sac. We decided to go anyway and chose Tisdale instead of farther up river not knowing how low things were going to get.
We got the lot right at 5:30 and noticed rocks everywhere at the bottom of the ramp. Barely touching the water the end of the ramp has only a few inches of water before going off the cement. The dock is touching ground partly.
Without another boat around anywhere we decide to start fishing right away and do our usual drift down the rock walls. The water has very apparently dropped a lot over night and is wet for almost two feet up the banks.
Normally, any change in flows shuts the bite off for several days but today was different. We noticed several white herons along the bank feeding. As we drifted we'd come upon more also feeding. Sometimes several at a time, and not just in one spot.
It wasn't long before Jim gets his first hook up to a good fish, before coming undone. A few casts later and I'm hooked up to a nice schoolie. Almost legal size really puts a bend in an 8 weight. Jim's hooked up again and this one is a little bigger. While releasing his fish Jim says the fish really feels warm and checks the water temp. 76 degrees ! Geez, it feels like a bath tub. This isn't going to help the salmon that are coming up soon. But the stripers don't seem to be bothered too much.
We continue on getting grabs and snags and several more stripers along the way.
Still the herons are scattered everywhere. Obviously they're feeding and showing us where bait is being pushed up against the rocks. It got to be almost a guaranteed grab or hook up wherever they were and more fish would come to hand.
We figured that with the low water dropping even more it exposed more rocks and places bait used to hide. Now having the bait pushed out of it's normal lair it's having to relocate in new water. This in turn puts the birds on the alert for food and also wakens what few stripers are still in the river.
Over-all we had a really good morning. Not another boat in sight all day and the fish were on the bite. Doesn't get much better :)
Tony
We got the lot right at 5:30 and noticed rocks everywhere at the bottom of the ramp. Barely touching the water the end of the ramp has only a few inches of water before going off the cement. The dock is touching ground partly.
Without another boat around anywhere we decide to start fishing right away and do our usual drift down the rock walls. The water has very apparently dropped a lot over night and is wet for almost two feet up the banks.
Normally, any change in flows shuts the bite off for several days but today was different. We noticed several white herons along the bank feeding. As we drifted we'd come upon more also feeding. Sometimes several at a time, and not just in one spot.
It wasn't long before Jim gets his first hook up to a good fish, before coming undone. A few casts later and I'm hooked up to a nice schoolie. Almost legal size really puts a bend in an 8 weight. Jim's hooked up again and this one is a little bigger. While releasing his fish Jim says the fish really feels warm and checks the water temp. 76 degrees ! Geez, it feels like a bath tub. This isn't going to help the salmon that are coming up soon. But the stripers don't seem to be bothered too much.
We continue on getting grabs and snags and several more stripers along the way.
Still the herons are scattered everywhere. Obviously they're feeding and showing us where bait is being pushed up against the rocks. It got to be almost a guaranteed grab or hook up wherever they were and more fish would come to hand.
We figured that with the low water dropping even more it exposed more rocks and places bait used to hide. Now having the bait pushed out of it's normal lair it's having to relocate in new water. This in turn puts the birds on the alert for food and also wakens what few stripers are still in the river.
Over-all we had a really good morning. Not another boat in sight all day and the fish were on the bite. Doesn't get much better :)
Tony