roe, yarn balls or cocktail shrimp. They can also still be caught on small K-9 or K-11 plugs. Fly anglers are doing well swinging copper johns or egg imitations.

Chinook fishing in the Umpqua estuary is steady, but slow. Bank anglers in Half Moon Bay and the boat basin are consistently catching Chinook and a good number of hatchery Coho. There have been reports of folks catching fish throughout the main.

From July 1 – Dec. 31, anglers can harvest two wild Chinook per day, and in combination with the other salmon / steelhead recorded on your salmon tag, up to 20 fish total. Fin-clipped hatchery fish can be recorded on a separate hatchery harvest tag that is available.

LAKE TAHOE

Macks Attack Lures, Rigged Baits

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE- Full limits of fish in the 2 to 8 pound range, that’ s the word from guides and private anglers fishing the waters of Lake Tahoe in recent days.

Gene St. Denis of Blue Ribbon Charters

Now Booking for …

Smallmouth • Steelhead Salmon • Trout Sturgeon

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Phone Bill Kremers at …( 541) 754 – 6411 bkremers @ comcast. net 29606 N. E. Pheasant, Corvalis, OR 97333

For instance, the gas tax is another Brown creation that’ s mutually hated by both Democrats and Republicans. If Bernie Sanders had become president, he would have increased corporate taxes and also gone after those corporations that dodge taxes by keeping their money in oversea tax havens.

He had planned to use that money to fund infrastructure projects – like road and bridge improvements. But, that didn’ t happen; so, we have states using these regressive taxes rather than instituting their own version of taxing those who actually can afford it. The military has plenty of dough; but, they’ re getting an increase in funding; so, just where the

money for roads will come from is anyone’ s guess.

On his way home from gathering supplies for his next big waterfowl hunt, Eric noticed our neighbor with the large hulled boat had just gotten back from enjoying the crab opener. Eric thought it was too bad we won’ t be bringing home any crab this season. I guess I’ ll have to buy it at the store – like everyone else. Meanwhile, at least we have some rockfish, striper, bass, abalone, and a little bit of salmon to help us through the winter.

So this time around, the rockfish that Eric caught in Shelter Cove and Half Moon Bay makes an appearance in a dinner I made for us using two kinds of mushrooms. I had gone crazy at the store one day buying several packets of seasoning mixes that were on sale. I fished one out for this occasion, using it to flavor the rock fish. Eric thought it was delicious. Hopefully, you will too. reports pulling minnows and dodgers for limits of mackinaw in the 2 to 8 pound range. St. Denis asserted that there are some larger fish available too. If luck is with you, you might just end up with something over 10 pounds.

Mickey Daniels of Mickey’ s Big Mack Charters has been successfully trolling Carnelian Bay. Mickey starts out trolling briskly in shallow water before slowing down and working progressively deeper. His clients are hooking macks running up to 8 pounds.

Fish Sniffer readers Mark and Dennis Clayton, took a break from pounding stripers in the West Delta and hauled their kayaks up to Lake Tahoe for a crack at some macks and they did well.

“ My brother and I ended up landing 11 mackinaw between us. The top fish weighed in at just over 7 pounds. We got some fish while working jigs, but overall, we had the best luck pulling Arctic Fox trolling flies behind 6 inch Gold Star dodgers from our crank Scotty downriggers,” said Dennis.

“ The shallowest fish we caught was at 25, but the best fishing was down around 80. We kept limits of macks, filleted them and smoked them just like you’ d do with salmon. We used a sweet brine and the results were so good. We are planning to hit the lake again before it gets really cold up there just to lay in a good supply of smoked mackinaw,” exclaimed Dennis.

WEST DELTA

Stripers, Sturgeon Chomp Baits

BRANNAN ISLAND- The water is 58 degrees near Pittsburg, ideal for bait fishing for both sturgeon and stripers.

“ The tides had been a little small for sturgeon, but we were still catching fish,” reported Captain David Hammond of Delta Pro Fishing.“ Now that the tides are ramping up I think our success rate is going to get even better.

“ I’ ve been running with a full selection of baits recently. I’ d say that eel is number one, but if you go it’ s a good idea of have some shrimp baits and salmon roe two. If you’ ve got decent roe, I’ d say that is the number two bait. At this point I’ m focused on deep water areas in Suisun Bay from Pittsburg on down,” he tipped.

Stripers are still being caught by trollers here and there, but the best results are coming for folks soaking natural baits. Shad is hands down the number one bait for a limit of keepers.

If you want to hunt for those bigger bass live baits such as mud suckers and bullheads work great and baits you’ ll need to catch yourself such as split tails, pike minnows and bluegill work even better. Yet, be warned that it takes a lot of patience to fish big live baits effectively.

These anglers teamed up and boated this husky 50 inch sturgeon while fishing the West Delta with Capt. Barry Canevaro this October.

Photo courtesy of FISH HOOKERS SPORTFISHING, Isleton.

INGREDIENTS

• 2-4 rockfish fillets

• 1 packet Grill Mates Korean BBQ Marinade

• Vinegar, oil, water

• Ingredients for a stir fry:

• 8-10 shitake mushrooms, stems removed and sliced thin

• 6-8 mushrooms, white or brown, sliced thin

• ½ large green bell pepper, sliced thin crosswise halfway up, cut into 1” pieces

• 6-8 large brussell sprouts, cut crosswise thinly, stems discarded

• 1 Cup green kale, no stems, torn into small pieces

• stir fry seasonings:( something with soy sauce, ginger, oyster sauce, sesame seeds / oil, etc)

• oil( usually a light oil with a splash of toasted sesame seed oil)

• cooked white rice

DIRECTIONS

Ground up the saltines( either plain or salted) with the Goldfish crackers. You can use a processor or you can place the crackers between wax paper or in a bag and use a rolling pin or wine bottle to crush the crackers up. Sprinkle in some lemon pepper and a dash of cayenne pepper. If you want, you can also sprinkle in a little paprika for extra color, if you want. I didn’ t; but, I just thought of that and it would be fine. If you use salted saltines, I wouldn’ t salt the abalone, as it’ s already so thin that it doesn’ t need much in the way of salt.

Put the ground crackers on a piece of wax paper or in a container like a round cake tin( which is what I use). Dip each piece into the egg mixture and then into the crumbs. Lay the coated abalone slices onto a piece of wax paper for the crumbs to set. Do this with all the slices and then heat up a skillet with plenty of oil in it( so that the inside of the pan has about 1 / 4 inch of oil in it).

Heat it to a relatively hot heat so that it browns quickly. Everyone’ s stove is different. On mine, I have to put it way up high. Quickly lightly brown each side( should only take less than 30 seconds per side) and remove to paper towels to drain off the excess oil. Serve with slices of lemon, your favorite tartar sauce, or on soft lightly toasted rolls with chopped lettuce and mayonnaise. Serves 2-3 folks. If you have any questions, comments, cooking tips or recipes to share, feel free to write me at Cookcatch @ comcast. net or at

Paulette or Cookin’ Yer Catch; c / o The Fish Sniffer; PO Box 776; Colfax, CA 95713-0776. Go for it!

11844 Atwood Rd • Auburn 530-888-7825

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• Professionally Installed

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• Same Day Service

6455 Pacific St • Rocklin 916-773-7333

All Gear Provided

5 hours

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• Discounts for Cash •

• Large or Small Groups • Group Discounts • Gift Certificates Over 50 Years Experience on The Lake

P. O. Box 488

Carnelian Bay, CA 96140

E-mail: bigmack-2 @ att. net • www. mickeysbigmack. com

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