The weather’s turning nice (finally) and kokanee all up and down the West Coast are starting to chew! With high water levels in most Nor Cal reservoirs, it looks like 2011 is going to be one heck of a good koke year!
Guide Monte Smith of Gold Country Sportfishing had a ball with a couple clients on New Melones Reservoir, where he had the fish cleaned and the boat back on the trailer by 9:30 a.m.
Stay tuned, mini sockeye junkies…we’ll have lots more on “The Year of the Koke” coming up!
The California ocean salmon opener has, not surprisingly, sparked a lot of interest in saltwater salmon fishing and I’ve received quite a number of emails this weekend from folks asking about how to rig up for kings in the salt. Well, that’s a subject worthy of a book and I could literally go on for days, but here are a couple of my favorites. These two are super quick and easy — and effective!
Before I begin, a quick word on bait selection. Regardless of the rig, you need good, quality bait. Buy only the tray variety if it’s available! There are lots of trick things you can do with baits like brining and dyeing them, but this time around, let’s stick to the basics. The anchovies this year are pretty small, so herring or small sardines are going to be your best bets.
The rig above is a basic “Westport” cutplug rig. Starting with a whole fish, make a “double 45″ cut just behind the gill plate. Place the knife on the fish and rotate your wrist so the blade is at a 45-degree angle to it’s body at the same time, remove the head with a cut that angles 45 degrees from top to bottom. Remove the guts and you’re ready to follow the instructions above. [click to continue…]
On July 16, less than a year after Michigan’s Tom Healy set a new All Tackle World Record for brown trout with a 41 pound, 7 ouncer, Roger Hellen of Franksville, WI banged a monster brown that was larger than the current record — by an ounce (41 pounds, 8 ounces). Hellen hooked the beast while trolling a Fishlander spoon in Lake Michigan off the Wisconsin coast.
Now, here’s where things get a little dicey: Though Hellen’s fish is one ounce heavier than the current all-tackle record, according to IGFA World Record requirements, to replace a record fish weighing 25 pounds or more, the replacement must weigh at least one half of 1 percent more than the existing record. Bottom-line, Healy and Hellen might be sharing an IGFA World Record tie for their two fish. As a baseball guy, I’m not a big fan of ties, but what can you do here?
I have no idea how Hellen’s fish was handled, but if it were thrown on the bottom of the boat and allowed to dry out rather than being put immediately on ice, (again pure speculation on my part…though the fish in the pic looks pretty leathery), it would have lost a significant amount of weight…enough, probably, to make the difference. [click to continue…]
Okay kokanee junkies…ready to go troll for some truly giant kokes? You’ve got to check out Washington State’s Brewster and Baker lakes, where there have been some interesting new fisheries developing this summer…The salmon in these lakes aren’t truly kokanee but instead ocean-run sockeyes that are open to fishing for the first time. Check out out pal Bill Herzog’s Zog Blog at Northwest Wild Country for more details and some cool pix. Also be sure to click the “Rasticle” link for some cool rigging photos that should help ya out in future kokanee endeavors.
With wives outta town last week, VinMan and I did what any two fishheads with a kitchen pass would do…blow off all responsibility and hit the water. This time around, we headed for Caples Lake, a sparking little gem high in the Sierra Nevadas near Kirkwod, CA. With tight schedules, we left the big city for a quickie jaunt to the mountains around noon last Wednesday and were back home 24 hours later, with a nice evening and morning of troutin’ under our belts.
We decided on Caples Lake because a) At 7,800 feet, it’s way above the heat of the Valley; b) It was a place we’d never been; and c) It was supposedly stuffed with trout.
Jessica Wyatt caught the May Hawg of the Month in 11-Mile Reservoir
The people have spoken! Judging by the large margin of victory that Jessica Wyatt enjoyed this month (42.2 % of the vote), you folks love a nice brown trout…
As this month’s Hawg of the Month Contest winner, Jessica gets an automatic bid into the 2010 Hawg Bowl at the end of the year, in which she’ll go up against other monthly winners for a chance at a free fishing trip!
When Northern California’s Lake Pardee re-opens to fishing on Friday, Feb. 6th., 2009, anglers should see some white-hot fishing…if it’s anything like the action we encountered on Media Day on Sunday.
The preview day of fishing was open to a select few bass pros and media members (organized by Kent Brown of Ultimate Bass Radio and hosted by Pardee Recreation Co. owners Richard and Kerry Copper). Record-class smallmouth bass were the target de jour. Pardee is rapidly gaining a reputation of being a top-notch smallie fishery, and several bronzebacks in the 8 to 9+ pound class were taken there last season.
