CAGI Sonic Fish Attractor

I took a month off of blogging to test the CAGI Sonic Fish Attractor. I wanted to make sure that it was worth the price. Well, here are the results. You be the judge. I fished Los Vaqueros and Lake Del Valle. I got ten to one bites in Los Vaqueros with the CAGI. Went to Lake Del Valle twice and the results were amazing. I put a J7 broken back Rapala 24inches back of a green CAGI and let out 6 colours of lead core, about 32 feet deep ,right at the thermocline.I then put down various lures on the down rigger at the same depth. The lead core got so many bites that I took off the down rigger and put out another lead core pole with another CAGI attached.The final score, 43 confirmed hits on the CAGI and 5 hits on the down rigger. It appears that the fish hit the CAGI sometimes as I would get a solid hit and then nothing. So I say if you want to try one go to Cabela's, they have three colours to chose from, I am partial to green.

I also started to use a Big Jon downrigger. I like the idea of fishing at exact depths for those summer fish. It gets hot here in the Bay Area and the water gets catfish warm. I finally caught my first trout on the downrigger.It was a three pounder caught on a Fish with Gary spinner in an orange bead pattern 12inches behind a matching orange dodger. I found out that I need a special ultra light pole to get the proper load on the downrigger. That was why I missed all the fish. So new tackle is coming.

Catfishing is still slow. They are still on the spawning beds. Went out after trolling with a jar of Kokanee Corn and cast the rocks. It is just like bass fishing. You see a fish guarding a nest and cast your corn there. It gets attacked and you drag the catfish off the bed . Just like bass fishing you let the fish go to protect the nest. Soon it will be catfish season for those 2lb. fryers. Yum I can not wait! Until then I will continue eating those 12lb. trout patties. God Bless

Big Trout at Lake Del Valle

As stated before no pictures of small fish. So what happens? The fish gods smiled on us. It might be because we took no bananas for lunch. The hours finally paid off, or it was the superior skill of the crew; or a combo of them all. After two hours of trolling with one small fish caught and numerous hits, the back reel's drag started to scream. No big deal as I sometimes leave the drag very loose so I can pretend that any fish on seems like a monster. Ferne takes the rod and I control the boat. Since I think it is a small one, I leave the other rods in the water. After two minutes of not being able to gain any line , I suggest tightening the drag. It was tight. So guess what? We have a good fish on.By this time the other poles were going every which way. So I put the motor in neutral and the fight was on. It took five minutes of delicate fighting to get the fish to the net. All I heard from Ferne was,"SH-T THAT IS A HUGE FISH!" The fish was hooked by one hook in the very tip of the top jaw. Any slack and it would be gone. Good angling skill and a little luck The fish was brought to net. Only one line was caught in the motor and no other tangles. A good Job done!

The fish weighed 12 pounds and 4.44 ounces! It was caught at 1:30 in the afternoon on a Michigan Stinger light spoon in Alewife pattern. It is sort of a black shad colour. The spoon is ultra thin and light which kept the hook in the fish's jaw. A cast master would have pulled out the hook.

I have been using a new small plastic "fish caller." It was part of the rig that caught all the fish that day. I will show the item and name it when I think it is worth the $10.00 price tag it carries. So far it brings in more fish but not more strikes. I will use it more and give an update. I hate to suggest using a $1.00 product that costs $10.00, unless it does what it advertises to do, catch many more fish.

God Bless and Good Fishing for now.

The Party's Over

The last plant of the spring came and went. Our wonderful fish and game peoples out did themselves this time. They found the smallest trout in the country and planted them in the south bay. These six to a pound trophies were snapping lines all over the place. But no matter the water is too hot now so the little trout will be food for the herons and the catfish. All in all a very unexcited planting season. Now it is waiting to see if we get some catfish planted. Maybe on the free fishing day in June.

The east bay is finishing up the derby next week. The fish are small and not easy to catch. I went out today in 100 degree heat and caught only two pounders. The leader of the derby a 14 pounder was caught by a bass fisherman fishing a rubber worm. Time is getting short and the weather is hot. Maybe I will switch to the salmon in Devalle. I just need to spend a few days searching for them. Anyway catfish are about to spawn. Then it will be fillet of catfish on the grill. Ican't wait. I promise not to post any pictures of any small fish just the lures which caught them like the sculpin fly which caught twenty trout during last weeks ' post kids day at the perk ponds.

These two to three inch flies swim like small fish and cause the trout to smash into them The only negative thing is that more then half of the hits are missed. But what is better a fish or two or
twenty hits with a few fish caught . I will take the latter.
Time to go get the catfish gear ready. God bless for now.

More of the same ,many trout but small

I have been fishing and not posting any reports because the fish have been small to medium. You can only see so many pictures of little trout. I will start with the South Bay. Stevens Creek Dam got its usual 3000 lbs of tiny trout. I went there in the middle of April and caught twenty or so trout with a plastic gulp worm on a bubble rig. You get some of those plastic bubbles and put some nonlead split shot inside. Fill the bubble with water and put your line through the bubble and tie it to a swivel. Then tie on 6 feet of fluorocarbon and finally tie on a small light wire hook. Rig the worm and cast out . Somewhere between one and twenty seconds of sink time the fish will hit the bait.Keep track and fish that depth. You can also attach a fly instead of the worm and fish this rig. By now you can see that I do not like to still fish with powerbait. I will try anything.
Cottonwood Lake got plants every other week. Add a Kids Fishing Day and you have many fish to be caught. But they were all small. So small flies and small power worms were the way to go. The fish bit but 8 inches?
The Campbell Perk Ponds had their annual Kids Day, with 5000lbs of fish stocked. Some big ones mixed in. I took my grandson there on the 3rd. of May. He caught three trout on power eggs before he got bored with that. We switched to a bubble and worm and had fun hooking and loosing many trout from one to three pounds.

Now on to the East Bay. The derby is on the fish are there although not the size of trophies yet. Saw the plant at Chabot on the first. They put in 500lbs of medium size trout with a few large ones. I saw one ten pounder come out of the tube and saw it lay on the bottom. It might not make. About half of the trophy trout die shortly after planting. So find a floating giant trout and scoop it up and win the derby. It has happened before.This is another reason to not stock any fish over 15lbs. They just cant make it.
Los Vaquaris is in the derby but no trout over ten pounds is still swimming in the lake . They stock King Salmon fingerlings which carry a fatal disease when eaten by trout. Large trout eat small salmon and die. So the lake record is a freshly planted 10 plus pound trout. But the good news is that their are one to three pound salmon swimming around,ready to bite. They grow fast,till they die next year.
So I will try to catch those trophy trout and some of those salmon in the coming days I will also catch trout at the Perk Ponds using some flies from BigYFly Co. They are out of Oregon and have good quality and dirt cheap prices. I have been using their Rabbit Strip Divers. They really get the fish biting. But you miss many strikes because the small trout hit short. You only catch the big uns yea!.

Downsize your offering

In the last post I said that I caught my biggest trout on a small lure. well, This week proved that if you want to catch any size fish, you need to down size. The South Bay plants came on Monday. I got there Wednesday afternoon. the bite was slow and the fish were schooling ten feet from shore. People were throwing all sorts of large lures and fly and bubbles. These made a huge splash and scared the fish. I put on a small thrill bobber a non lead split shot and a no.14 beadhead fly . This small rig only casts 30 feet but enters the water with a tiny splash. This was perfect for these trout. In two hours of fishing I caught between 25 and 35 trout ranging from 6in. to 1lb.

The next day at Cottonwood Lake no one was catching anything. I had the lake to myself. You could see fish swimming about but not hitting . I threw out the bobber rig and soon had a fish on. The trout just bit the end of the fly and quickly spit it out. By watching the fish inhale the fly I was able to hook the fish. This went on for two hours until people showed up with large baits and noisy bobbers. The fish stopped and I went home with twenty-one fish landed and released. People please stop trying to catch little trout with big baits . They are not as dumb as they seem. This is the rig . Tie a thrill slip bobber to your line ad weight to cast and tie a small fly to your line any where from two to five feet below the bobber. This rig can be used as a fly rod and is a lot easier to use. Try It!