Creek Bass Report 7/10/05

[Hairstacker]

Hi all! My buddy and fellow board member David Lee very kindly (and thoroughly) introduced me to a cute little creek in urban Shangra-La today for some wet wading for creek bass! The place was INFESTED with 'em. Caught a mess of smallmouth bass, spotted bass, and about a half dozen green sunfish. Between the two of us, we probably landed all told between 50 - 60 fish and dropped others. David tied up and shared with me some new cone-headed mohair style leeches of his own design (among a half dozen different patterns he had tied and placed in my outstretched palm for me to keep ) that the fish just COULDN'T get enough of. I also caught a couple of good ones on an olive beadhead woolly bugger (note for Darian ), and David tossed his awesome Bugskin Craw for a little while.

At one point, I was untangling a knot in my leader while David called out 6 fish, one at a time, just before he cast to and landed each one in quick succession. Also, I must say, fishing gets quite a bit easier and more focused when you're lucky enough to have a professional like David with you who can call out each unseen fish sitting next to a ledge, rock, tree stump, what have you. He knew where they ALL would be! Needless to say, I learned a ton from David today, as I always seem to do when I'm around him.

Most ranged in size from 6" - 10." Feisty little buggers and just a lot of fun on a light fly rod!


Here's a picture of David with one 'em:



Here's a picture of David with another:



Here's a picture of David fighting a nice one (check out the bend in the rod!):



Here's a picture of me with one of 'em:



Here's a close-up of one of these pretty fish:



On the way back to the car, David was kind enough to demonstrate how to sight-fish and work a Bugskin Craw while employing an innovative, vertical casting technique:



After an amazing 40 foot vertical cast to a sighted smallie, you can see him demonstating how to set the hook in this picture. As David reeled the fish in 40 feet upward, no doubt this fish thought he was ascending to meet his maker :



Of course, the sequence wouldn't be complete without a shot of him RELEASING the fish, which is what we did with all of 'em we caught today:



I had a BLAST, and I couldn't have wished for better company! Once again, a real treat hitting the water with David, as anyone who has done so knows only too well. Thanks a bunch David, we must definitely do this again REAL SOON!

P.S. For the life of me, I can't figure out why the 1st and 3rd picture above are smaller than the rest -- I uploaded them 4 times and got the same results. Even tried increasing their size bigger than the rest. . . .

[Adam Grace]

Mike, thanks for the pics.

Sometimes my pictures get small like that too

I think the file size has something to do with it, the more colors and contrast in a picture the larger the file size, I think. Not too sure but I can't seem to correct it on our board.

Oh well they still look great.

[MSP]

Nice report guys. Looks like fun.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Great report and pictures guys.

I use to put as bunch of different rods and tackle in my old car about 40 years ago and just drive looking for water. I built my own rods and loved to go test them.

That looks like Dry Creek that runs through Roseville?

I hear the Bear River coming out of Camp Far West and running west to the lower Feather River is full of bass too.

[JPY]

Wow, urban fly fishing looks fun especially dodging cars as you cast. Looks like you guys had a blast.

John

[David Lee]

Bill Kiene -


Shhhhhhhhhhhush

Quit naming names ...... You'll start a trend :P

Screamin' fun trip - I'll post some other 'outta th' way' places , soon !!

David