Happy Boat Day!

Today is boat day! It would be an even more exciting day, if it wasn't also transmission service, rear seal, U-joint day for our SUV. Hopefully the rig will be ready for the drive out to take a look at the boat, I will post pictures later today once I know more.

This weekend will be spent fishing (like pretty much every other weekend, evening, early morning day!), we are taking H's mom out for the first time. (She has done some catfishing, but not much trout fishing). I got one of my old Shakespeare rods and a Quantum reel ready for her. You might be able to spot us up at Northfork reservoir come Saturday morning.

Happy fishing and thank goodness its Friday! Feel free to post some pictures of your weekend excursions, and your catch!

Northfork Resevoir, how 10 feet can make a difference.

Sunday morning, we were up bright and early. We got up to the lake around 6:30am and our lines were in the water before 7am. H was using my Daiwa ultra light carbon fiber rod, which we traded. So I am running on her Quantam 36pro Graphite medium. After doing some work for H's mom this weekend, I was able to purchase a new Quantam Triax spinning reel, loaded up with Chameleon Maxima 8lb line. My rigging for this spot, was a bullet slide weight, a round slide weight (to give me the extra weight to get out past the weeds, with the bullet to help cut through them on the reel in) a 2' 6lb test liter and an eagle claw #10 hook, with the barbs removed. (fishing in Oregon has all gone barbless for the most part, so if your thinking of going trout fishing, remove the barbs before you go. Or pinch them down with your tackle box pliers)

When we first got up to Northfork Res. we had settled in about mid-lake off the bank, around the corner from a few other fisherman. I started catching almost immediately. After our first 2 fish the bites died down and we thought we were going to be in for the long haul. A few others had passed by us on the trail and headed around the corner, and as we were listening in, they had already limited out and were packing up and leaving! Score! So we packed up, and move around the corner. After chatting with one of the guys, we casted out from the bank...and sat, and sat. H finally moved down about 10', and caught another. So we had 3 on the stringer. Soon, we heard the group that had been next to us catch their last and leave, so H decided to move back over. I was getting skunked in the supposed glory hole and had tried casting all over the damn place. 'did they leave any fish in here?!' No more than a minute and H has landed another one! so I pack up, and move back over. I feel like I have now fished from every inch of the bank. But H managed to find the sweet spot, and finished out our stringer in less than 20 minutes. By 12:15 we were running out of time in order for H to make it to work on time, so we were forced to pack up and head back early. As we were moving out, more were moving in. Though this time, the secret honey hole left with us.

We caught 7 total this trip with two being over 12" in length. H out fished me by 3, at the very end of the day, it wouldn't have taken long for us to limit out but we had to get H off to work and a very scary pile of dirty laundry awaited me back at the homestead.

This Friday brings with it some excitement, we are going to look at a boat. We have both been wanting one, I prefer row powered over gas powered, with an electric trolling motor when the expense can be warranted. But right now, I am excited to go check out a boat.

A horrible shot of the stringer of fish, as we ended the weekend. 

The road out, from the night before. It was a beautiful sunset.

H caught only one 9" rainbow the Saturday evening before, she had two fish that jumped the hook before shore though. 

 

North Fork Resevoir, Oregon

August ended with our first time fishing the "hot spot" at North Fork Reservoir, "hot spot" seems to be a giant misnomer however as nothing was hot about it, except for the sunshine. H, Managed only a pea sized handful of nibbles using trusty old Chartruse Powerbait, and hooked one 12" rainbow. But I got completely skunked. Not a bite, nibble, nip...I was beginning to wonder if a single fish swam past my rigging at all. It certainly didn't feel like it.

Perhaps I was still working the "new rod smell" off of my Daiwa Laguna 6.6 carbon fiber rod. The rod worked flawlessly, this was my first time running an ultra light and there was a slight adjustment period to noticing small movements in the tip, from water fluctuations (or the irritating boat, speeding through the "no wake zone" that sent water crashing into the shore and successfully tangling my rig into the weed bed, but I promised I wouldn't talk about it.)

We stayed at the lake for only a couple of hours before deciding to move around a bit and make a day of it. We got in around 6:45am and left around 8:30am, it was a clear blue sky and the lake surface was like polished glass when we dropped our first lines. We visited 2 other lakes before finally settling down on the other end of North Fork Reservoir at Promontory Park. In that time before we left, we witnessed an older gentleman just north of us catch 3 nice sized "bows" in short order, and overheard him say that he was using red power bait eggs. We tried the red, the green, with sparkles, without sparkles, the patriotic smear, fireball eggs, even what has been called amongst friends as our secret weapon, the power maggot...didn't seem to be working. Maybe we spent too much time with the cats this morning before we hit the lake. Or maybe we just weren't in the right hole.

 

The 12" rainbow H caught. A good looking fish.