Slept in until 11:00 AM Sunday after a 13 mile kayak trip Saturday. Road trip was in order. Debra and i headed out hwy 92 to HMB Hwy1 and points south. Stopped at Duartes in Pescadero for artichoke soup, heavenly fresh bread, Snapper and chips and crab sandwiches. Headed south on hwy 1 through Pigeon Pt, Ano Nuevo, Waddell Creek, Davenport, Santa Cruz and back home. LOVE this stretch of coast.

Hit the Tuttletown ramp at a leisurely 9 AM. Saw a couple of NCKA brothers SonoraMIke and Daleshark Tim at the ramp. Stellarman and I ran up the creek without a paddle. Passed Reel Habit Rod and and friend at the environmentally sensitive buoy and they were already sporting near limits.  After dallying at the creek mouth we slipped back out to the bouy and commenced to whackin. I got off to a good start but Jerry was en fuego. I landed 4 and he punched 10. Flasher worm worked. Gold kastmaster worked. Rapala worked. Rainbow kastmaster worked. 13 miles pedaled today.  Great weather all day with overcast.

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I picked my son and his friend  up Saturday am and we blazed to Glory Hole in record time. Weather was overcast with light winds, temp mid 40’s, 2 days after the full moon.   I was worried about the lake being stained up from the Christmas deluge but water varied from slightly colored in Coyote to clear points west. We concentrated in creek arms and had steady action all day on small fish. Limits for all three and then stopped counting. Toplining silver/blue and rainbow kastmaster worked well. Mike ran a cop car needle fish behind a flasher tipped with a crawler 10-15 ft on the rigger and that worked too. We banked it in two different creek arms but they wanted trolled stuff today. Was glad to get the boys on some fish.

Ran solo today as my crew failed to muster. Their loss! Was an awesome sunrise.

Get up there

Rigged and ready

Contrails

Launched at Tuttletown around 8:00 and headed for the creek arm that had been good to me. The fish were not at the inlet as in weeks before.

Creeka risin

Practiced my self timer placement in anticipation of the beatdown

Empty hold out

Where’s the shad? Went off to trolling. Blue silver Kastmaster on one side and dodger/thomas bouyant on the other. It was on.

Weather was very nice

Glassy

Boated 20 or so and 5 came home to join the wife and kids for dinner.

Cinco Pesca

Feeling like I got this lake dialed so humiliation is bound to come.

Debra and I met up with Mike and Joe in reno at Pho 777 Friday for bowl noodle hot. Off to the casinos for some action. Wasted a hundred bucks and retired. 4:00 wakeup was typically brutal and we were fishing at first light. Dangerous started us off.

Final score 4 for me, 3 for Mike and 2 for Joe. Slow but fun day. Spoons in green worked, I got 2 afternoon fish on the Kevera Beetle. Fish were right on the bottom and not too far off shore. Xlnt weather.

Uh, wow.

Epic day on Melons. Luz D’Alma, Randy and yours truly absolutely slayed the fish today. They were right where I wanted them. Bait was THICK and fish were slashing and slurping all day. BIG thick Rainbows gorging in plain sight on 100 yards of 3 inch shad. Easy to hook shad were sent back out under a bobber or just left on the lure. It was sick. Kept 11 released 30 easy.

Acres of these

First on

Wax on

T’s on

We beached the boat and went to work. Bait coming out of the water in sheets. Fish prowling the bank.

Released dozens of spots.

Two fisted fishing

Gold kastmaster was ON

Freshy

THin man

Colors on the females

Arms getting tired

T Rodster with a trophy

Eleven went home with us

WOW

Solid bait for 8 hours

Surface tension

Tug o war

The lineup

Life is messy, clean it up

Money shot

Tomorrow we have a trout cookoff to see which recipe wins.

I am very lucky to be a field tester for Delta Wood Bombers DWB (Thanks Carlo). I was also a field tester for Joe @ Bodega Bay lures. I spent many a day on the delta with Dan Waddell (Ghetto Booty) pitching Sporty Spooks until our arms fell off. We had a couple of MEMORABLE days with Bobby Barrack featuring outrageous topwater bites. Bobby and Booty were quite a pair together.

So Carlo is making a “froggy” wood bait that I know Booty would have thrown. I made a memorial box for Dan to send to Bobby Barrack that showcases Carlo’s excellent craftsmanship. I will mail off to Bobby today with Carlo’s business cards. Some pix for your enjoyment:

Brother Randy and I tractor launched from Russos at 9. Made a few stops in Franks for nada.  Outgoing tide, some cloud cover, light winds.

xlnt wx

Ran west of Broad slough and pieced together a pattern. Chrome blue rattle traps and big hammers. Lots of weeds to clean off your lure but that’s where they wanted it.

smallest of the day

Jerking them right out of the weeds in 4 feet of water

Rattle trappage

swimbaitage

Rattle rat

mo better

R back

5 ft  of water or less was where they wanted it. Hot fish and hard strikes. Around 3 PM we headed into center of Sherman. Several large fish hooked there on the Delta Wood Bombers 8 inch white chartruese but aggressive drag settings freed them. SHerman was holding fish for sure.

 

 

Sherman

A fun day

Cloud show

The bulk of the run is still west. Franks was dead on the way back.

Stellman and yours truly left Pleasanton 6:00 AM with Bauxite Betty in tow. Weather putting on a show on the way up.

An Aura

Vista cruiser

Splashed her at Glory Hole 8:15. Ran under the 49er bridge

Man of Stell

all the way to the end of the south fork.

Convergent

Dead and dying kokanee everywhere with a dozen Ball Diggles (or Bald Eagles if you prefer) vying for easy protein. I nailed a nice Brown on the rainbow needlefish 32 feet on the wire.

Germanic Brown

Rain wind clouds and calm periods on and off all day.

Walls

Enjoyed bagel egg breakfast, bloody marys, pork tenderloin sammys, red wine and a few Stellas. Ran back under the 49 bridge around 2 and headed for a special place. We get all the way back in skinny water and see bait busting. The next 45 minutes saw us put 6 nice rainbows in the boat with quite a few lost.

Spunky

RECKLESS

MOes

We were hooking bait (3 plus inch shad) on lures. I re-hooked them through the nose and caught several that way.

Bit a live shad hanging off a needlefish 10 feet from the boat

It was RECKLESS

SLUGS!

Bass beer birds bait and bruiser trout. They were following back stuff to the boat like  big green shadows. We had a couple of monster followers. Jerry was on fire.

Silver surfer

With 7 in the box we could see weather coming in fast so we headed back to the ramp.

Portent

The last 100 yards to the launch ramp was lightning thunder and absolute pissing rain.

Hit the cleaning station

Beer can Scale Factor

Sunday Dinner

What a day.