Lake Wohlford 3/6
I saw the in the Lake Wohlford report they were going to stock another 1,500 pounds of Nebraska trout on Wednesday 3/4. I said to Chuck P. lets give'em a couple days to acclimate, we'll fish there Friday.
Chuck has jury duty this week and couldn't make it. Good thing he saved his $7 entry fee because fishing once again sucked.
At the cafe where you buy the permits the nice lady said they didn't stock the lake Wednesday. I said oh darn, I was hoping... She said don't worry, the truck was late; they stocked it yesterday. Yay!
I pulled up to the eagle tree and set up camp, making cast #1 at seven, with one rod having a nightcrawler suspended six feet under a Cast-A-Bubble and the other a dough rig with Nitro Bait soaked in Nitro Gravy. The eagles are now gone but in their stead were hundreds of swallows darting through the sky. With only about 80 miles to go, they're on schedule to reach Capistrano 3/19.
Last month when I was here I fished in the rain along with several other anglers. Nobody caught anything except this one dude who reeled in a pair of fat rainbow trout. I didn't inquire with him what his trick was at the time but I found out today. After an ninety minutes and no bites, that same local professional sitting at his favorite spot got up, walked over and paid me a visit. I asked, hey, are you the same amigo who caught all them pescados in the rain last month? He said, yeah, but I have no bites today. I asked what's his big secret of catching fish when nobody else is. From his jacket pocket he pulls out three jars of PowerBait.
I said, oh man, that's no secret, you just got lucky. He said his spot at the small cove traps the fish momentarily as the school swims by. They kind of ball up before they get their bearings and move on.
Also he said he and his son limited out this past Saturday with a pair of four pounders and yesterday he caught three. But today is really slow, he lamented.
Great I came on another slow day, my personal theme for the year '09. Around ten I had only one bite when the bell attached to my dough rod sounded twice and I saw the line twitch. I grabbed the pole and waited for some line to go out before I set the hook. That never happened, the bait was only mouthed and spit out.
Next I removed the bobber and retied the worm rod with an inflated nightcrawler soaked in Nitro Gravy and suspended four feet off the bottom. Also every hour I switched out my dough bait from the Nitro to PowerBait soaked in PowerBait juice, Gulp! and Troutkrilla. I stayed until 1pm with no hits, even though the whole day I saw several large surface splashes caused by active trout. Amigo headed home two hours earlier.
On the way back to the truck I polled 5 out of 10 anglers I encountered, all of who said they caught nothing and saw nobody else catch anything.
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I took part in the MLPA (Marine Life Protection Act) survey from Ecotrust sometime last year. You basically tell them how often you fish from shore, boat or dive and indicate on a map of So. Cal. the places where you fish and what species you target.
I was thinking if I tell them where I fish for calico and sand bass and opaleye -- along with hundreds of other anglers -- there will be a chance our spots will remain open, re. Palos Verdes and Laguna Beach.
There was a big stakeholders' meeting in Long Beach this week (Mar 3-4), the California DFG released some preliminary maps. Not looking too good for my two aforementioned favorites. Still too early to tell which areas will be off limits to fishing as the process is not slated to be completed until the end of 2010. Read the story.
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Monday 3/2 I took the 400 out to Anza-Borrego to check out the spring bloom. A few nice pics in the photo gallery.
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Pink bottlenose dolphin found in Louisiana lake