Took my son Pat and his bro Mike G to Melones after regaling them over the holidays with fish stories of 20-30 fish days so of course it was slow.

A bit cold in the morning but overall a fantastic day on the water.

Bite was off but we caught a few. I was teaching Pat the proper way to hold fish for pics but he is a slow learner.

Since the creek arms were quiet we took a run up the Stanislaus arm east of Parrots Ferry Bridge. An old stamp mill is out of the water.

The canyon was glowing in the winter sun.

Trolling there was pretty steady but rookie crew dropped fish after fish. Finally Mike gets on the board.

Hot lunch of homemade beef noodle stew provided a welcome break

For you serious fisher types, I would concentrate east of the PF bridge right now. There are a lot of trout stacked up there.

We saw a Subie on the rocks about to pass back to an underwater state

“I said LEFT at the bridge!”

We tried Carson creek arm on the way back but nothing there. Still we  fished till sunset.

Ultimately I will blame the almost full moon.

We took home 3 and farmed a dozen easy.