Carpin with Dan..

Friday Dan Blanton and I spent the morning and early afternoon chasing Carp. The better quality fish were absent in the area we fished but we did a get a couple of shots on teeners and we passed on a lot of average fish looking for a pig but it just didnt happen.  We ended up with about a dozen or so average fish and had a great time.  Dan broke off the best of the day with a leader failure. I was bummed since it was pretty nice fish of about 15#. I'm about to head out now to see whats up in another area so we will see what happens with all the rain we got last night I expect good results. It usually turns them on. Dan and I have an LA trip for Reds coming up in the Fall and i'm looking forward to it.

A front moved in Satetrday Morning. I love fishing in the rain and it really put the Stripers on the chew. It was non stop for most of the day in two deep bays where they had silversides balled up. I was ready for a big bite but it never happen.  I lost count but 40+ fish easy. I was solo but two guys could have really racked up some numbers.  I didnt get anything big but no dinks and the non stop grabs from 4-6lb fish was fun.  My hands are tore to shreds today. They were suspended in 15-20'over 50-60' of water off steep bluffs.  Water was  Crystal clear with aboiut 15" vis and watching them run the big flies down was awesome.  I harvested a bleeder and he will be coming to dinner tonight.

Misc fishing...

Bass and Stripers have sort of taken over the last week or two but I did get out stalking Carp today solo. Hundreds of fish are around. Some post spawn, spawners were up in the shallow creeks but the majority have still yet to get it done. Lots of cruising and layed up fish and those are the ones I like to target so it was a really satisfying day with some killer eats. With water temps in the mid 60s there are fish in all stages. An explosive midge hatch had fish cruising just below the surface sucking up emerging bug with an occasional sip on top. They were not so focused on the tiny bugs that they wouldn't eat a streamer though. After the fist couple of miles of walking I had 10-12 fish landed. All small so I backed off the rest of the day and passed on many looking for better quality and was rewarded with three nice fish. 

 

Will be back after Bass and Stripers in the morning. Weather in the high 70s low 80s during the last moon phase really pushed them up and I'm looking forward to getting on the water.

Spring fishing report..

Seems like we are fast tracking right into warm weather when other parts of the country are still getting hammered with bitter cold.  Today will be in the high 70s to low 80s. Stripers are on fire. Nothing really big but numbers of school fish will keep you busy all day if you know where to look. Bass fishing, especially Smallies & Largemouth has been really good the last couple of weeks too. Some good quality fish are already up shallow and I have been hitting them with Bass Tackle. 

We are in the middle or tail end of the first spawn cycle of Carp in some places and it's pretty easy to rack up good numbers of fish. Some days big girls are out, other times it's smaller fish or no fish depending on where your looking.. Again, it really depends on where your at and how hard you want to work at it.

Fishin..

I love this time of year...The variety in the fishing is as good as it gets. We have been getting fronts rolling through about every three or four days. Lets prey these continue. These have been warm stuff coming out of the south.

The fish have really responded to the inflow of freshwater into the marsh/brakish areas. Good numbers yesterday with 5 out of the dozen or more being over 14# with a very thick 20+ class fish. There is certianly areas around the country where that wouldn't raise any eyebrows but thats about as good as it gets here. For me anyway.

Were supposed to move into the high 70s over the weekend so I fully expect the already good fishing continue until everything goes into full blown spawn. Some areas are already in full spawn and some new flooded backwaters have large fish up shallow chewing on small bait fish and focusing on packing it on.

first 20+ of 2014

Diablo Range finnaly starting to green up

  

Spring rains

We are being blessed with some decent rain. God knows we need it. As soon as it stopped raining this morning, I went out and battled the wind for about five hours. If there had not been so many fish around I would have bailed. It was barely manageable and blowing about 30kts out of the south. High water had fish all over the flats so I hung in there and ended up with 7 landed to about 14lbs. Most were on the small side with 3 or 4 shots on teeners. Some areas had fish spawning and other places they were still in a late winter mode and agressive. Most fish came on a small white clouser.. These warm storms really trigger spawning activity but I wish they would hold off and strap on the pre spawn feed bag a little longer.  Hit a Pike Minnow hole a week ago and caught a good number of nice ones swinging streamers.  It was better than a skunk!