With your highs come your lows

6/23/11

The Boston Whaler aka the Bass inhaler! 

The very next tournament after my first place finish with the Bass Amushers was at Lopez Lake at the end of June. I did some research before to the tournament by calling the Marina (805) 489-1006 and asking them a few questions. The information that I gathered that I thought would be useful was the fact that there were no more closed off coves since the spawn was over. Water temperature was in the 70's and the Lake is up 8 feet from the 13 inches of rain that it got this winter. 

A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. 

What I thought would be a key to victory was the fact that the Arroyo Grande arm of the lake was no longer closed off. I figured these fish have not been pressured by anglers much and decided it would be a great place to start. I didn't expect the fish to be in full summer mode because the weather has been so mild this year. The one thing I didn't know was if the fish were in post spawn I am not going to bite mode, or post spawn FEED ME mode.

Started with some senkos, topwater revo, spinnerbait with some success. My dad caught one right off the bat on a spinnerbait then not much time later caught one on a senko. So I figured we had a good pattern going, shallow water senkos and spinnerbaits. This was again reassured by a keeper I caught on a senko. The problem was the bite died off and we didn't make the right adjustments.

He is starting to look like a bass fisherman ladies and gentlemen.

The winner kicked everyones BASS big time by a margin I have never seen before. With 22 pounds of bass he left everyone in the dust by 12 pounds! He was fishing the main lake and caught them on spinnerbaits and drop shoting. I think the key was he fished the main lake which probably had a summer pattern going on, shallow early then deeper later on. I was impressed after bringing in only one keeper for the day. The winner is our clubs current Angler of the Year so he knows what he is doing. It is encouraging to think that you can reach a level of skill that can set you apart from the pack by 12 pounds.

The drive back from the lake. 

One of the positives for the day was my dad had his best turn out yet. He brought two keepers to the scales and beat me.

Life is Like Fishing...everytime you turn around someone is trying to hook you!

Here little fishy fishy...

Here in the real world, with my two feet on the ground, I often feel like the fish. It's a little bit of a role reversal and maybe that's why I like fishing so much it gives me the chance to do the hooking! Speaking of hooking part of the reason I was inspired to write this entry was the fact that I was just in Las Vegas. Everywhere I turned someone or something was trying to lure me in to giving them my money! "Hey you! Check this out, put your money in here, I can show you a great time but I need $2,000. Go wait in that line or give me $100 and you're in. DAM you hot, let's hang out...but I need your money." I felt like a 3 inch sucker fish in a giant pool filled with 9 pound hungry bucketmouth fatties.

Vegas knows how to seduce you and finesse you into a money spending daze like no where else in the world. If I was a lure designer I would travel to Vegas to study the many ways they use to lure people in, get them to bite and bring them to the boat. Is it the flashy lights? The color red which you see everywhere, the margaritas in the foot long plastic cups, the amount of walking you do to get anywhere, the water fountains, pirate shows, bars that do not close, the beautiful women in bikinis smiling at you making you feel like Burt Reynolds or a combination of all those things, whatever it is it works.

Anglerfishes are members of the teleost order Lophiiformes. They are bony fishes named for their characteristic mode of predation, wherein a fleshy growth from the fish's head (the esca or illicium) acts as a lure; this is considered analogous to angling. Doesn't the angler fish remind you of Las Vegas and we are represented my little nemo. "Get out of there it's a trap!"

In a way it's depressing because you want to think people are being nice to you because they are genuinely interested in who you are, but you begin to realize everyone is after the small 6 and 3/16 inch green things in your wallet. Call it paranoia, but that is how I felt. It's definitely not just Vegas the rest of the world is this way as well and I have come to accept it. Money makes the world go round, it is just ever more apparent in Vegas where everything is bigger and magnified! I am glad to be out of sin city and have a chance to go fishing, where I am more comfortable being the hooker then the hookie.

Skyman out.

References:
Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2006). "Lophiiformes" in FishBase. February 2006 version.

That's a nice sack you got there!

When I started fishing again I wrote down a couple of goal's I had for myself and one of them was to win a tournament. I did not expect this to happen to me yet because my knowledge of the sport and  the techniques are still in their teenage years. Well, sometimes life hands you things when you are not expecting it and that's what happened to me at Santa Margarita Lake April 23, 2011.

This was a spring time tournament meaning shallow water bass bonanza! I reviewed my Santa Margarita Lake map and looked for some good shallow water flats. The back end of the lake, which is called the river, has the most productive water for this time of year. With the amount of rain we got this winter, there would be lots of newly flooded vegetation, great for spawning bass.

My go to lure would be the senko in watermelon with red/black flakes, pitched at isolated clumps of weeds and trees. I like the five inch size senko because I read in the book, Knowing Bass The Scientific Approach to Catching More Fish, by Keith A. Jones, PhD, that a bass's strike response is greater to soft plastics in the 4" to 5" length.

Driving up to the lake early in the morning with my dad I realized I had not gone to the ATM the night before to get enough money for all the options.  Time being an issue, I decided to just get in the basic tournament option which is $ 25. When we arrived at the lake I talked with the tournament director and he informed me a lot of good sticks were fishing this tournament and there was about 40 people in all. Whoops. Should have borrowed $ from pops, it was the chance for a nice check.

The day started off great! It was one of those days that I'll probably remember forever. I had a limit by 10:30 am. Once we were in the right stretch of water, it was fish after fish. I was calling out where I thought a fish would be, casting there and hooking into them. I was the Babe Ruth of Bassin that day! With success in life comes a few failures along the way and even this day had a few. I lost a couple good fish one that could have been big fish of the tournament. The big one I lost kind of popped off leading me to believe my drag was a little too tight. I also noticed my hook sets weren't that strong which I believe is because my rod is a little short; ) I use a 6'6" rod when I should probably be using a 7 footer. My final weight for the day was 18.14 pounds, one hell of a bass sack, good enough for first place out of 39 guys!

My culling system. Those are some big bass baby!

Another lesson learned this trip was about fishing etiquette. As the saying goes in life, treat others the way you want to be treated, same rules apply in fishing. Give others their space and don't be nosey while the tournament is going on. I had another fisherman who I had a small conversation with earlier in the day kind of mosey over my way when he noticed me catching fish. He asked me what I was doing, which I should have ignored but since I fish for the thrills not to pay my bills, I told him. I would never ask another angler what he was using and get close to him while he was fishing. At the end of the day I might ask a few questions, but definitely not during the competition.

The ride back to the weigh in. 

Pops with a good sack!

Feeling like a bass boss!

Now that's a sack! 

Since I was the champion I got to do an interview with Wayne Shaw the outdoor writer for the local paper. On the phone he was very nice and I told him the story of how I caught the fish and the techniques that I used, but like society tends to do he focused on the negatives in his article. Really rubbing it in that I did not get in all the money options. To be honest, I thought that by being in the basic tournament option I would be able to win some money, but so sorry:( Anyway, I lost out on $435 but like I said earlier I fish for the thrills not to pay my bills.

Bass Ambushers Article in the Tribune

Below is another article Wayne wrote about me when I was in high school. He is kind of a hater.

  

I like you, but you're crazy!

Sometimes I feel a little crazy as a fisherman. I mean who goes out on a lake fishing when it's freezing and raining? Awesome anglers that's who! I had these images on my camera from when I went out the weekend before a tournament at Lopez Lake to do a little pre-fishing and had some success so I decided to share. This trip was in early to mid February and the weather had been pretty brutal. I think air temps were in the 40's-50's along with some serious rain. If you have the proper equipment and gear (rain suit and boots) it's really not that bad. If you like solitude on the lake then this is your favorite time to be on the water. I mean look at the boat ramp, it's just me:)

The one and only angler on the lake.

Winter time bassing for me = rip baits, suspending jerk baits & crankbaits, drop shots, and jigs. The key words for winter time angling are slow and slower (kind of like dumb & dumber). Depending on the water temperature deep water is also a key for success. A basses metabolism slows down considerably in the winter time and therefore doesn't eat as much. Given the basses predatory nature you can still catch them if you get close enough to them, enter their strike zone and move at a speed they are comfortable with, or you cause a reaction strike where they don't have much time to think, they just react.

Something to consider is the temperature of the water and if the lake is turned over or not. In the winter time at some point the temperature towards the surface becomes cooler and denser (aka heavier) and sinks taking a lot of oxygen down with it. During this time the lake stratifies or develops layers. A thermocline separates the two or three major layers of water.  The thermocline is the area where greatest change in temperature with depth occurs. Below are a couple of articles that talk about the thermocline:

Simply put, the thermocline is a thin layer of water in a lake which is sandwiched between the upper layer of water (the epilimnion) and the lower, colder layer of water (hypolimnion). During the summer months, surface water is heated by the sun and the surface temp could be 80 degrees or more. This floats over a layer of colder more denser water called the hypolimnion. Now, between these 2 layers you have a thin layer in which the water temp drops substantially. This will be the thermocline. The temp at this level may be high 60's and up in about the middle of spring.

Graph for ocean of depth vs.temperature. Reference site.

The temperature in a lake is seldom the same from the surface to the bottom. Usually there is a warm layer of water and a cooler layer. Where these layers meet is called a thermocline. The depth and thickness of the thermocline can vary with the season or time of day. In deep lakes there may be two or more thermoclines. This is important because many species of game fish like to suspend in, just above, or just below the thermocline. Many times baitfish will be above the thermocline while larger game fish will suspend in or just below it. Fortunately, this difference in temperatures can be seen on the sonar screen. The greater the temperature differential, the denser the thermocline shows on the screen. 

During the late winter there is usually no stratification on most lakes. As a result the water will undergo a temporary oxygenation process. Strong winds, feeder streams feed the lake with spring rains and plant growth begins. So under normal conditions the deeper end of a water body will be quite saturated with oxygen. Since the lower layer is much colder than the surface (averages 10 to 25 degrees difference) the deeper portions can retain the oxygen molecules sent its way during the pre-stratification. 

Why does the hypolimnion lose it's oxygen? The thermocline and the upper layer of water are continually replenishing their oxygen supply and the hypolimnion gradually loses it for several reasons.Probably the most important reason is there is very little or no plant life beyond the 30 foot level. Unless the water is gin clear the suns rays cannot penetrate the lake deep enough to grow any vegetation.

Key points from this reading:

• Lake turns over in Fall (October, November) when cool water on the bottom is pushed up by the even colder more dense water on the surface (caused by dropping air temperatures).
• Fish will be deep (hypolimnion) when oxygen levels are greater there then near the surface (usually winter).  Also known as the pre-stratification period.
• When the lake becomes stratified or layered (thermocline developed and seen on sonar) most bass will be found in the thermocline because it is most comfortable for them (not too much light and more oxygen then hypolimnion). This is usually late winter early spring.

The bass below was caught on a rip-bait, a 4 in. River to Sea bait to be exact. I was fishing the inside of secondary points on steep angled banks targeting suspending fish. An interesting thing happened during this outing that is worth taking note. I caught my first fish after I got a backlash and was messing with the line. The lure was out there and down to its running depth of about 8 feet. While I was messing with the line the bait was suspended and not moving at all for probably close to 30 seconds and that's when the fish hit! This told me I needed to really slow down! I caught 2 fish in 3 hours and developed a good pattern because both these fish weighted more than three pounds. 

The only problem was the next week the weather totally changed on me! The front passed and there was high pressure and clear blue bird sky's. I was able to catch two keepers but my original plan fell through and I had to scramble to catch those two. I forget what the winner caught them on but I think the bass were not suspending but were relating more to the bottom. 

Makes the trip worth wile. Three pound late winter bass!

Below are a couple of instructional videos on how to fish a suspending jerkbait aka rip bait:

It's not all about the fish.

My brother from another mother Henry David Thoreau (American author and over all boss hoss) laid down some serious knowledge with this quote;

 "Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."

Neck Beard = Immense knowledge listen to what I say!

This quote speaks to me on a couple of different levels. When I do go fishing I am trying to catch fish, especially during a tournament. But there is much more to it. The whole experience of being outdoors and trying to figure out a species that lives an an environment that is foreign to us is awesome. It takes a lot of imagination because most of the time you can't see the fish you are pursuing (although modern technology is catching up to mr. bass). Fishing can be a real escape for people. I like to totally forget about what's going on in my life and focus my energy to try and figure out what the fish are doing, where they are, what they are eating ext... My mind is always racing when I am fishing, I compare it to a duck swimming along the surface of the water. To the human eye the duck looks calm cool and collected but below the surface the ducks feet are paddling like a hamster in a wheel. 

What are the bass doing down there?

I also love the scenic beauty of the Central Coast. The landscapes are inspiring and nice to look at when the bite is slow. Attached are a few pic's from my adventures on the water:

Back side of Bishop's Peak, a small farm pond I grew up fishing that is no longer there:(

There is the pond!

Pituophis catenifer catenifer - Pacific Gopher Snake. Get back on land!

Know your snakes!

San Antonio Lake

Santa Margarita Lake, bass in the grass.

Lopez Lake trollin.

Cachuma Lake, looks like they are fishing a flat.

Cachuma Lake

Cachuma Lake

Fire above Santa Barbara.

Nice Cachuma Lake Largey! Hit the 5" swimbait.

Get er done mom!

Hell yeah Ty.

Give that bass some love.

It's spring and my hands smell like fish.

4/17/2011

The second tournament with the Castaic Bass club kicked off at Piru Lake. I drew Walt as a boater, a young ambitious angler like myself. I looked for some good spring time water on the map and Diablo cove as well as the cove near the marina seemed like good places to start. I also wanted to try to fish a little in the river portion of the lake.

My baits of choice for this tournament were the senko, spider jig, spinnerbait and a crankbait. I left my drop shot at home not realizing that it can be a very productive tool for shallow bedding bass. Walt was catching them left and right on the drop shot. 

Between the two of us we caught 16 bass, I caught 4 of the 5 keepers. We had a limit by 8:00 am. Walt fished the drop shot most of the day with a 4" roboworm in oxblood on a short leader. I caught bigger fish because I was fishing a larger profile bait. The senko is a bulky 5" bass inciter that shimmys slowly to the lake bottom. I prefer to fish it weightless and wacky style. 

Our total weight was 10.55 pounds good enough for a third place finish out of 14 boats! A big key for us was the decision to fish the cove by the marina the hour before weigh in. We caught three good fish there enabling us to cull two of our smaller fish. The winner came in with 12 pounds and said they used spinnerbaits, although I was not that convinced they were honest. Fisherman tend to fib from time to time. 

Another bait I am starting to hear more and more about is the Ika. Made by Gary Yamamoto fished on either an okachobee rig or weightless reverse Texas rig. It has a slow fall similar to a tube. 

Ika rig:

If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you are with.

3/10/11

Since I can't fish the lakes I love, why not love the lakes that are near me now? That is exactly what I did when I attended my first meeting of the Castaic Bass Club held in Valencia, Ca near Magic Mountain. The club meets the Thursday before the tournament at El Torito restaurant. The Club fishes Castaic Lake, Castaic Lake Lagoon, Pyramid Lake, Piru Lake and Cachuma Lake. All with in an hour from where I live in Santa Monica.

The membership year will run from January through November. All members will pay the following dues or fees:

Annual Dues-$25-payable upon joining the club in January, reduced to $15 if joining in July 1 or later.

A. Monthly dues-$10.00 each month, including the month of joining. All fees are due at the monthly club meeting. Members must pay their dues before tournament day!

B. Monthly tournament fees-$10.00 for each tournament fished. $5 big fish option is available for interested members.

C. Non-boaters are required to pay their boater fishing partner the following minimum amounts to cover their share of boat operation expenses.

Castaic Lake: $30.00*

Piru Lake: $35.00*

Pyramid Lake: $35.00*

Casitas Lake: $40.00*

Cachuma/Lopez Lake: $70.00*

My first tournament with this club was to be @ Pyramid Lake and my boater was Brian. Castaic Bass Club fishes a team tournament format, which is great because it builds camaraderie. Gate opens @6 am the low was 41 F,  high 68 F and partly cloudy. Weigh in was at 3 pm at Yellow Bar.

Brian and his boat.

Brian was a great guy, new to the sport. We did not have the best day because this lake was new to both of us. I should have done a little more research before hand as well as map study but I thought Brian would have a good game plan. We caught two keepers on the flick shake, which I will find to be a common occurrence in this club.

Me giving my signature thumbs up! 

Why is it called Pyramid Lake? I don't know:(

Here are a couple of videos on the flick shake:

Take home lessons from this tournament were to step in and make suggestions, especially when fishing with someone who is new to the sport. Also learn more about the flick shake! 

Wiggle, wiggle, make those bass giggle

With a flick, flick here and a shake, shake there

Uh oh! Here comes Billy Bass...

BEWARE! 

!CHOMP!

Slaying the dragon! aka Nacimiento night tournament

7/24/10

A July Naci night tournament! Oh yeah! Boats launched at 7 pm and weigh in was at 3 am. I really enjoy night tournaments, especially at Nacimiento. The lake can get really crowded during the day in the summer months, which means lots of boat traffic, muddy water and sad bass:( Studies have shown that bass do most of their foraging at night in the summer so night tournaments give us anglers an opportunity to take advantage of that. Because of the low light conditions your sense of touch/feel is enhanced and when a good size spotted bass blasts your lure it really gets your heart racing. 

Look mom! A dragon. Bring your drop shot lets slay this beast. 

My game plan was to drop shot until it got dark then throw reaction baits (spinnerbaits, lipless crankbaits) and some jigs/chatterbaits. Started just outside snake creek and didn't catch a thing until it got dark. Boo. 

When night finally feel upon us, I was able to catch my first fish on a black spinnerbait with a #5 size willow leaf blade. The black profile of the bait shows up better under low light condition (aka moon light). It was a really nice spotted bass so I was pumped! Ended up catching 4 total and pops had 1. If we were fishing a team tournament we would have done well, but since Ambushers is an individual tournament we didn't do so hot. Think I finished 11th or 12th. Winner won with jigs by the dam.   

One of the key take home points was to have some back up blades for my spinner baits. During the tournament a fish busted the blade off my spinnerbait and I did not have another one of that size (#5).

Naci is a lake with a lot of spotted bass that are about the same size (fisherman call them clone fish), around 2 pounds. If you catch 10-11 pounds of fish you are looking good. One fish in the 3-4 pound range to add to the clones and you're set. There are largemouth bass at Nacimiento and it is a good strategy to go for a couple of them either around a dock or in some stick ups. I feel the spots hang around the rocks @ Naci more than the largemouths.

I attached some instructional videos for how to rig a drop shot. A great Nacimiento bait. If you are going to fight the dragon, bring a drop shot. The pro in the video is Skeet Reese a big time bass slayer. 

sky man out like a trout.