My Day Fishing

Just checking in. I haven't been fishing nearly as much lately because of the amount of work I've had. But I have been trying to get to the local pond at least once during the week. I haven't caught anything in quite a while. I think the last time I caught anything worth mentioning was at Skinner a few weeks back. Caught a couple bass. The pond has been super slow. I went today to try to find some bluegill but didn't have any luck. James let me borrow one of his fly rods and some flies. I was hoping to entice a few bluegill to come out and play, but I had no such luck.

Yep, I'm still here. I've been working a lot more and fishing a lot less lately, but I still try to get over to the local pond when I can. I was talking with a couple guys there yesterday that were saying the pond had gone through an algae bloom and that's what had killed most of the bass. Not sure if it's true or not. I always have trouble catching bass there so I can't say I noticed a huge difference in the bite. But I did see a lot of dead bass a few weeks back.

Hopefully I'll have something more exciting to write about soon.... like a fish or something!! :)

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I headed out to DVL last Saturday with my son Jacob and met up with James and Amy there. We rented a pontoon and had a good day out on the water. Jacob landed his first Large Mouth Bass, and I landed my first Striped Bass.



We took that striper home and made fish tacos that night. A great day on the water, followed by a great dinner.

My wife is an incredible woman. So it was no surprise to me when after not being able to find a girl scout troop that had room for our daughter, she decided to start her own troop. And I'm not the only one that thinks she's amazing, which is why I wasn't surprised when the troop reached maximum capacity almost before they had their first meeting.

Now there's a scouting patch available through www.TakeMeFishing.org for scouting groups that plan and go on a fishing trip. I was blessed to be a part of getting that patch for my son's scout group a while back and thought, "Why not Girl Scouts too?"

I mentioned it to my wife and she was instantly excited, and so was every other mom and girl scout in the troop when they heard about it.

Well, I don't do too badly with kids, but I didn't think I would be able to handle teaching 12 little girls about fishing on my own so I called up James and asked him if he and Amy would be interested in helping me take these daisy scouts fishing. Understanding that kids often get bored quickly if they aren't catching anything, and being the generous person that he is, James offered to sponsor the girls for a trip to the Mt. Baldy Trout Pools.

So this past Saturday we all caravaned up to Mt. Baldy to meet up with James and Amy at the trout pools. We gave the girls a bit of an introduction to the different kinds of rods, reels, and bait that we use when we go fishing, then we all headed inside and started getting our gear.



A total of 9 girls were able to come so we set each of them up with their own rod and started baiting hooks. The parents that came along were a big help also and the first daisy scout to get her line wet had a fish on before I could even bait the second girl's hook. From then on it was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon with little kids tossing their lines in the water and hauling out rainbow trout almost as fast.



We fished for maybe an hour and a half and every daisy landed at least one rainbow, with some landing up to five.



Afterwards, all the girls washed up and we sat down at the picnic benches for some lunch before heading back home.

The girls absolutely loved it! And each one was excited to take their fish home. Our final tally was 9 daisy scouts with 27 rainbow trout.

What a blast. When I asked them afterwards if they had fun they almost deafened me with their cheers!

Thanks to all the parents that helped out, and an extra big thanks to James and Amy who by their generosity made it possible for the girls to have a great day!

Click here to view more photos of the day.

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I went to Fulmor a couple weeks ago and was happy to have James and Amy meet up with me there. But it was a pretty slow day. I caught one little guy at the beginning of the morning and that was it for the rest of the morning.

From the deck we were able to watch a few fish circling around, but didn't have much luck with them. Amy hooked up on something that made all of us curious. It looked almost golden brown. But it successfully threw her hook so we didn't get to see it up close.

I made a quick trip to the pond on Thursday after work to get some more practice in with my new Shimano and was disappointed when I started seeing dead bass floating in the pond.

I just received delivery of my first baitcast reel, a Shimano Citica. Anxious to test it out, I called up James, knowing he'd be fishing in the San Bernardino Mtns. He had mentioned that he might go to Jenks Lake. I had been wanting to try out Jenks Lake, so we agreed to meet there. I took off at about 6am and was watching the sunrise as I entered Beaumont.

I arrived at about 7:30am, and James and Amy got there around 8. I knew there was going to be a bit of a learning curve with the new baitcast reel, so I started small just pitching a frog out a few yards. James and Amy rigged up their fly rods and James hooked a little Warmouth on his first cast. It took most of the morning, but I eventually started getting the hang of casting with the new reel.

James and Amy hooked up on a number of fish, both trout and baby bass. I hooked up on this little bass that tried to eat a plastic worm almost as big as he was.


 I got the prize for the most insanely impossible hookup for snagging a dragonfly in mid air as I was casting a rooster tail (Mr. Miyagi eat your heart out!). Oh, I wish I had a picture to show you! But as I was hauling him back in to take him off my lure, he thrashed in the water, threw the hook, and took off. He must have learned that from watching the bass.

Compared to a lot of the bass you see, the one I caught was a decent sized one. That was until we saw Grandpa. We call him Grandpa because judging by his size he must be at least a few generations old. James spotted him just off the bank near the dock as we were getting ready to pack up and leave. He was cruising just under the surface, right above the underwater vegetation. He was enormous!!! Outside of the big fish tank at BassPro, I've never seen a bass that large before unless it was in a picture or video. He was an easy 10 pounder if he was an ounce, and it wouldn't surprise me if he was closer to 12+. He was absolutely huge!! We had been seeing surface strikes across the lake near the bank. We'd see one with a big splash, then another several yards away as you move towards us. Then another getting closer to where we were. We were thinking those surface strikes may have been Grandpa and he was just working his way around the bank towards the dock, then back towards the cover he came from. I'm telling you right now, if/when I go back to Jenks, I'm going to watch for those surface strikes and as soon I see them I'm going to start pitching my frog near the bank and wait for Grandpa to make his way over.

Around noon James and Amy invited me to go with them over to the stream. We fished several little pools until we found one with a couple dozen trout in it.


It also happened to be near by some guys that had driven up in a taxi to pan for gold. We fished that little pool for next few hours catching several trout of all sizes.