Fishing

[Kingcreek]

First time out for 2025.
41 degrees when I unlocked the gate at the private fishing club. 5 strip mine lakes crystal clear to 15 feet. No other people anywhere. Water temp is 53.
Lake is low and the launch is primitive. Hip waders are essential for a one man launch.
I was hoping for some crappie and or bluegill for supper but it ain’t looking too good.
The fresh coffee from my trailside kit and a grilled ham and cheese in the cast iron skillet on my little backpack stove are gonna be awesome though.

[Ben]

Nice!

I was just checking the flows at my "home" river last week, but they still had the "dangerous" notice up. Might be a few more weeks for me.

[Kingcreek]

Freakin beautiful day, mid 50’s with almost no wind and sunny skies.
And no fish to distract me.
It’s a funny little private club. A bunch of old pharts that don’t want anything changed, don’t want dues raised and really don’t want any new members. There are few members younger than my 67 years and they probably inherited membership status.
I only got in a few years ago because I knew the club president. $100 to buy in and $100 per year. I think it was raised to $120 last year.
1 meeting per year. Pay dues. Get a new key. The key fob is a cattle ear tag with the current year sharpied on it as proof of membership.
My father’s 1973 “50th anniversary series” Johnson outboard started on the 3rd pull and ran perfect, as usual. I use a minkota bow mount for fishing but it’s always good to run some fresh fuel through the vintage 2 cycle outboard.

[grampster]

Old Johnson and Evenrudes are indestructible.  I   I had a little Evenrude 5hp that got passed down to my son.  I bought it around 1975.  It ran very well for 30 years.  He sold it with his  small fishing boat.  I'd bet it's still running.

[castle key]

I fish at a very private club.

Not really much into fishing, but when I catch a nice Rockfish, Drum, or Spec, I'm in heaven! Prefer the cooking part to the getting part, but there is much catharsis standing on my dock and being overwhelmed by all of the noise, but no man made sounds!

Let's all enjoy our fishing!

[cordex]

We stocked our pond and have some good bass in there.  I'll "fish" with the kids (mostly doing rod maintenance and helping my son with bait) sometimes when they want to, but rarely get to just go out and have fun.

[Ben]

We stocked our pond and have some good bass in there.  I'll "fish" with the kids (mostly doing rod maintenance and helping my son with bait) sometimes when they want to, but rarely get to just go out and have fun.

My "bass pond" is a huge failure. It, between Winter and Summer, runs from 1/2-1 acre. When I bought the place, it was sold as a bass pond, but the only bass I have ever seen in it were the couple hundred fingerlings I stocked, which I believe were promptly eaten by the local herons. During irrigation season, I have a separate inlet pipe to the pond that I will open for a couple of hours once a week or so to "top off" the pond. I will often end up with smaller bluegill, crappie, and catfish getting suckled in (the water comes from the irrigation drain running by the pond).

Otherwise it is more appropriately a carp pond. Which is not all bad. I bought a bowfishing setup a couple of years ago that I will use (poorly) to thin out the carp a bit. Also, though I don't want to deal with preparing the bony things as food, they are actually really fun on a fly rod. They put up a good fight.

What I need to do is figure out how to get some larger bass transported here for planting. They would survive the predators better than fingerlings, and possibly establish as a permanent species, much as the carp have.

[Ron]

If you guys with ponds haven't seen this channel you might enjoy it and get some ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/@BamaBass

[MechAg94]

Sounds nice.  Fishing was never a hobby I took to.  One of the biggest bass I ever caught was when I was bored and start walking around the pond dragging the lure around in the water. 
I always wanted to shoot turtles, but couldn't because that would disturb the fish.   

[Kingcreek]

I need to strap my 17’ canoe on top of my boat sometime and try the 3 lakes I can’t access with the Jeep and boat trailer.
My boat is a 14’ extra wide, extra deep semi V welded aluminum Jon boat. Very comfortable to stand and move around in. Too heavy to drag.
On good water, the 6hp will move along at leisurely bicycle speed.
Years ago I was fishing with my friend and his high school football player son. We got caught in a sudden storm and I was coming off a lake at full throttle. I didn’t realize that with son in the front my intake was out of the water and the old outboard suddenly knocked a couple times and locked up. Pulled the cover and it was smoking.
We limped in on the troller in torential rain.
I was sure it was toast but I took it to a boat shop to get checked out.
I called a couple weeks later expecting bad news.
The owner asked what was wrong with it again? I told him.
He laughed and said they started it up and ran it in their test tank and it was perfect. He said it’s not unusual for the old 2 strokes to recover just fine after they cool off.
He charged me $25 anyway but I haven’t done anything but charge the spark plug since.

[BobR]

My fishing these days is taking the wife to Dana Point to visit a friend and I hop on a 3/4 day limited person charter for the day. We go out to an area called 14 mile bank which was closed to fishing for about 20 years and has opened up in the last few years. Rockfish are the target species. Fishing is about 4-600 ft down. Last time I went out I caught 17 of those delicious fish. The limit is 10 so I shared the smaller ones with people who did not limit. Depending on the fishing gods there are also Sheepshead, calico bass and if the gods are really smiling yellowfin tuna.

bob

[Ben]

there are also Sheepshead, calico bass and if the gods are really smiling yellowfin tuna.

bob

California Sheepshead are surprisingly good eating. I used to spear them, as well as Calico. While hitting the islands was always the primo way, I often speared decent size fish on shore dives at Refugio.