American Shad

I spent Saterday chasing Shad on the fly. I got a late start and mid-day is the toughest time to try and get them going on a reservior. Finding them was easy enough but the bite didn't really take off until the afternoon evening, till almost dark.

With our late sporing this year, water temps are still a little cool at 62-64 on the surface and they are just stating to move shallow and school up. This is a unique oppertunity on the West Coast to catch land locked Shad. So the 2010 Shad run begins for me, and I should be able to milk a couple of weeks of good fishing both from boat and accessable shoreline/beaches on the lake. The bigger females move in after the smaller males most years. Right now there are thousands of males.

Pink crazy charlies are my favorite fly for lake Shad. They just dont respond to the traditional big bright colored Shad flies that we use on the rivers here for some reason. Spinning rods and small shad darts and grubs will catch a few but with the clear water I like 5X, small flies and a 5wt for this kind of fishing. Have a good holiday!

New water

Found some nice slow moving carp water..this creek has a series of pools like the one pictured for about 4 miles. Does get some pressure but the fish are decent quaility.

Pack Net

I was looking for a small, telescopic fine mesh net last year. I checked out many on-line & in store and came up with the one i'm using now. It was closeout at a fly shop. So far it has been great for wade and hike fishing. Large enough to handle 10lb plus fish and the mesh doesn't tangle flies to badly. It doesn't have a rubber coating, but is a fine cloth type mesh and gentle on the fish. The front portion of the webbing is rubber, so if you short scoop a fish it has some give. So far I really like it for the wade trout and small to medium size carp fly fishing I do. After 4 months of hard use its holding up well. It was about 25 bucks retail.

Tough fishin!

The wind howled in the Bay Area all weekend but Saterday afternoon there was a reported variable wind @ 2-5kt and it looked to be laying down from the morning blow. Hooked up and headed over to San Luis Reservior. Almost ripped my door off when I got out of the truck. 16 dollars poorer after putting money in the box, I decided it was fishable so we splashed the boat. Wind increased to 30 mmph and with guts higher. I was pissed. We bounced around and the lake looks great but it was actually, and this is rare, to windy to fish the lee side bays with any kind of tackle!

Sunday I decided I would hit the beach and see if I could do some perch on the fly and maybe get lucky on a Striper in the surf. Wasn't to be. From Pacifica south to Santa Cruz the wind was honking! The jaws at SC was dicey at best and some pretty large craft was in danger of getting thrown into the jetty if they didn't know what they were doing. Ok, plan B. I went to a little mercado and bought one can of Del Monte kernal corn. Yeah I know, not exactly a "river runs through it " moment but I wanted to catch fish dam it! From there I headed over to some carp water on the coast to try out some corn flies I got.

With renewed confidence I baited the area and waited around..nothin. Threw some more in and still, nothin. Third time I threw in and started to see one here and one there slowly mudding around. I cast on three fish in a row and they all refused and blew the area out. Almost ready to call it and I happen to look down and there is a fish about 7 feet from me looking happy... I was out on a long cast so stripped in real fast and dropped it right infront of him. Tail up and he eats. Cool! that fish ran off and the school bolted. Turns out I swung a little soon and he's hooked on the outside of the mouth. Tough day so it counts. I was able to get one more to eat and that was it. So, they work but so did I.

Tonight after work I went to a local creek that I know has big fish. This time I brought bread flies and some old sour dough bread. I pulled the bread apart in about the same size chunks as the fly and salted the area good. I threw that stuff right in a small tail out and the bread kind of circled around in the eddie. Bingo! The big boys were eating off the top in no time. Two fish refused the bread fly and the third fish came up and smashed it. HARD pulling fish of about 10-12 lbs. Those flies are sick and look JUST like and dam piece of bread. That was fun! Before I get hate mail about how this in not fly fishing, I witnessed these fish attack a five dollar foot long once so this is a natrual food source to them Ha. I feel no shame

Carp Flies

Check these out...I was sent a fresh batch of corn and bread flies.. Not exactly sure how these will work but I know of a couple of places where the ducks are fed heavily. These might just get bit!

Monterey Bay

Spent this morning fishing around the kelp bads of Monterey, Ca. Light winds and overcast till I called it a day about 1:30. Water color was off so there strike zone was a little small but they ate well if you could get a Fly or swimbait in front of them. Got a visit from the Coast Guard too. They were eager to board my 14ft skiff for whatever reason. It would have been dangerous to do so and I told them I would head into the harbor if they really felt the need. They decided it wasn't that important and took off.

California King Snake

I was walking along a bike path next to a creek today and ran into a 4ft King Snake. What a bad ass beautiful snake! Everytime I see one i'm in awe. This was the biggest one I have seen. I picked him up and it was less than thrilled so I put him down and let him get on his way.

Carp and stuff

Target was carp. Ended up with 6 landed and three that I coudn't turn before they buried them self in willows or broke me. Most all the carp were about the same size 6-8lbs with a couple of 3lbers.The carp in the lake I was at today pull EXTRA hard. Not sure what it is. Catch a fish of equal size elsewhere and they dont compare. The bastards are strong and run long. Conditions were windy and water was stained as usual. I did get my first Tench on a fly rod. I can honestly say that I don't know anyone or have ever heard of anyone, that has a caught a Tench on fly. This was the 3rd or 4th time Ive tried and I got one to eat. I was stoked. They are strong for there size although an 8wt was probly a little over kill. 4-6wt would be better suited for Tench if that was the target specie. To many big carp in this place for that light of tackle. Good day all around.

Farm Pond

I saw this little pond on google earth and decided to try and find it. Pretty strait forward hike off the photo I printed. Walla, mthere it was. Beautiful little body of water LOADED with respectable size blue gill. I fished for bass for a while too but the two I caught were small. I also saw a pretty good size catfish cruising the banks rushing in on Blue Gill fry. Neat place.