The 16" Spotted Bass

[John H]

The 16" spotted bass is a good fish, but it is not a great fish. It won't be featured in a big spread in the next issue of The Drake Magazine and it won't appear in the next Fly Shop travel catalog. It will not be mentioned in the same sentence with the permit, the bonefish, the winter steelhead, the musky or the cutthroat trout. It probably won't even get a lot of fly anglers motivated to drive a couple of hours and put some money and effort into catching them. Clearly not a great fish as fly rod fish go but they do live around here and, in some reservoirs, thrive in large numbers. They also like to bite a fly that is falling through the water column and pull pretty hard to avoid getting their picture taken. Those are both qualities I look for in a fish.

I threw in the towel on the Berryessa season last week and it seemed like the logical next place to fish was Oroville. I fished there three days this week and caught a bunch. The 16" spotted bass is the bread and butter of your catch up there and it is a good fish. I like catching them. They get a little bigger but if you don't appreciate catching the 16" spot on a 6-weight fly rod Oroville will not be your cup of tea. There are better fish and better places to fish but 16" spots at Oroville are pretty good.

They have an inspection and seal system there now, so you have to deal with that, but it is not bad. They have a mussel sniffing dog at the inspection. It is kind of like the border or the airport with dogs sniffing around for contraband. They are going all out to stop the mussel from spreading. It would be nice if they went all out to get a boat seal that is good at Berryessa and Oroville but at the inspection station they seemed to think that was going to be next to impossible to do. Hopefully they will at least try.

There are also some good birds up there but somehow the battery in my bird camera was dead. The birds seemed to know that and landed right in front of me and taunted me and laughed at me for botching the camera battery. They had me right where they wanted me and rubbed it in. It was rough. I do have a couple of bird pictures from earlier this year. A kingfisher in flight with a crawdad. Everybody likes crawdads. Also, a robin in the mossy old growth with a slender salamander. I thought it was some kind of newt, but my brother-in-law figured out it was a slender salamander. I did not even know such a thing existed, but it does.

That is what is happening.


Not a great fish but a good fish.








Heading back to the nest with a slender salamander.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Thanks, John, for your wonderful contributions to this Forum.






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One of my favorite warm freshwater fish is the Smallmouth Bass, but it seems that in the reservoirs, the Spotted Bass has taken over.



Shasta Lake was famous for its Smallmouth Bass fishery, but a serious angler who lives in Mount Shasta told me

they were displaced years ago by the Spotted Bass.


My favorite warm freshwater fly fishing is top water in streams and rivers for Smallmouth Bass.

[DLJeff]

Nice photo of the kingfisher with a crawdad, don't see that very often. It makes you think about that kingfisher, seeing that crawdad crawling around under the water, diving down to snatch it, without busting his beak on the rocks, and being able to take off again with soaking wet feathers and a heavy crawdad in his beak. Pretty amazing skill.

[John H]

In the Delta where I got that picture a lot of crawdads and small fish get exposed at low tide. I saw a raccoon get a crawdad at low tide once. He ate the tail and discarded the rest. I see mink and otters eat crawdads also.

[Vaughn Willett]

John,

Good pics! Smallies are great fish, but spots have my attention lately. They eat the fly well and pull hard. Big fun!

Vaughn

[DLJeff]

In the Delta where I got that picture a lot of crawdads and small fish get exposed at low tide. I saw a raccoon get a crawdad at low tide once. He ate the tail and discarded the rest. I see mink and otters eat crawdads also.

I guess the kingfisher wouldn't have had to dive to catch that crayfish. Still, an impressive skill they have. Many of the kingfishers in other parts of the world are terrestrial so they don't dive and instead feed on small lizards, snakes, invertebrates, and even small rodents.

[John H]

Since we are talking kingfishers, I have to show you this one. I found this burrow in January. I went back in April and staked it out to see if they were using it. One showed up and went in. She poked her head out and I got this picture. I thought the burrow was a go, but I came back a week later and some rough winged swallows were using it. Bummer for me but the swallows were happy. The kingfisher must have found a better burrow. It is funny how short their legs are. You can see the grooves their feet make going in and out so they must have used that burrow in the past. I poked a stick in it, and it was horizontal and 4' long. It is probably nasty with poop.

[DLJeff]

Very excellent photo John. I'm jealous. It's not easy to find a kingfisher burrow that is active and actually catch the kingfisher's using it. They're really protective of their nest sites and won't go near it if another critter is close by, even other birds.

Did you read that book I recommended "Halcyon Summer" or something like that? About a lady who stakes out kingfishers on a river in Montana?

[RSK]

Great photos.
Went out this weekend and picked up a few like this on the upper American. I think it’s a spotted bass. Was targeting browns but these put up a great fight.

Russell

[John H]

DL - I did read it. Thanks for the recommendation. That is how I found the burrow and had some idea of whether they might show up and when and that you have to wait awhile for them to come even if they are using the burrow. They do zip in and out pretty quickly. I had given up and was leaving when I saw her go in. It was just a flash of color in the corner of my eye but I thought that might have been a bird so I waited. I was lucky she looked out and held still long enough for a photo. She could have left in a flash and I would have gotten nothing.

RSK - very nice fish and a good picture. Way to go. I hiked into the upper American in about 1986. I caught a couple smallmouth on a Mepps lure. That was in my fly fishing transition period. My friend who had gone with me went again a few weeks later, got lost, walked all night to find his way out and got a horrible case of poison oak. Hazardous place. He went to med school and then a few years later got stabbed and killed at the airport in Jakarta, Indonesia which is apparently also a hazardous place.