20 March 30- April 13, 2018 VOL. 37 • ISS. 08

FRESHWATER REPORTS:

CONTINUED FROM PG 15

NEW MELONES cont.

and the group of over 100 anglers was whittled down to 15 for the tournament’ s final day on Sunday at Lake Pardee after fishing at Melones for Friday and Saturday.

Mike Gomez of Berserk Baits pre-fished several days prior to the tournament as he was in high hopes of making the top 15, but the hot SWaver bite that he had been experienced‘ went from great to about non-existent’ within three days.

Gomez said,“ On Tuesday, I landed a 4.5-pound spotted bas on my third cast with the River2Sea SWaver and then I took the hooks off the lure and must have had 25 to 30 more hits on the SWaver. I didn’ t want to beat up the fish so I took the hooks off and fished a number of different areas. Wednesday produced another 15 or so fish on the SWaver, all in different areas, but the bite had slowed to 3 or 4 bass on Thursday’ s half-day trip before the bite went to zero on Friday Fishing with my brother Victor, it took until 2:05 p. m. before we put our fifth fish in the box on Friday, and we landed them on five different baits – an A-rig, an underspin, a Senko, a shakey head, and a Berserk Purple Hornet jig.”

“ The water temperature went from 56 on Tuesday and Wednesday before dropping to the 53 / 54 degree range on Thursday and coming back up to 56 degrees on Friday. The water is dropping one to two feet per day, and the clarity is crystal clear. The dropping water has pushed the bass back out into depths from 25 to 50 feet, and most of the success in the tournament was on plastics on the drop-shot or shakey-head along with jigs,” added Gomez.

Trout fishing remains fair at best, but the net pens from Kokanee Power will be

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

This angler grabbed his Fish Sniffer cap and headed out to Collins Lake for a day of trout fishing in late February. He was rewarded with two jumbo rainbow.

Photo courtesy of the COLLINS LAKE RECREATION AREA, Oregon House.

released in April with some quality fish getting larger every day.

Crappie and catfish remain slow with the cold weather.

New Melones is at 80 percent between inflow and outflow.

- Dave Hurley

OROVILLE LAKE

Trollers Land Landlocked Kings

OROVILLE – King salmon fishing at Lake Oroville is still going strong, though most guides are concentrating on striped bass and sturgeon fishing on the Sacramento River at press time.

“ I haven’ t been to Oroville for a couple of weeks, but my

Sonoma County Fairgrounds Friday April 20th – Sunday April 22nd, 2018

buddy and his friend reported catching 10 salmon, including 4 in the 13 to 15 inch range, on his latest trip,” said Rob Reimers of Rustic Rob’ s Guide Service.“ After they landed those fish, the bite shut off.”

“ They trolled with Brad’ s Cut Plugs and Speedy Shiners at 25 feet deep by the Green Bridge,” said Reimers.

Fishing has been tough for spotted bass at Oroville, but fishing should improve as the water temperature warms up. One local angler reported water temperatures of 48.5 to 48.8, degrees on his latest trip to the reservoir.

Most bass anglers are still fishing deep, at 25 to 50 feet deep. Expect to catch mostly“ slot limit” spotted bass in the 12 to 15 inch range, with some fish over 15 inches. Fishing with drop shot rigs with Robo Worms in pond smelt and shad patterns is your top prospect.

The lake level continues to rise slowly. The reservoir is currently holding 1,491,792 acre-feet of water, 42 percent of capacity and 59 percent of average. The lake elevation is 729.26 feet in elevation.

- Dan Bacher

“ We fished the Horseshoe and the Creek in Suisun Bay. We sat through the wind and the waves,” he said.

Just to give the you an idea of the conditions during the derby: At 1:30PM on Saturday, the Port Chicago wind buoy was showing a steady 18 knots per hour with gusts to 25 knots.

Flags were blowing inside Pittsburg Marina where Doudna and I waited out the weather during slack tide. Imagine what Suisun Bay looked and felt like for DeFilippo and Berseth, and all the rest of the competitors.

Third place consisted of father and son duo Dennis Peidade Sr. and Jr., with two shakers, six slot and two oversize sturgeon.

The first thing Piedade Sr talked about during our conversation was the weather.

“ It was miserable out there! I felt sorry for the guys having to fish in the thunderstorm! The rain and hail was coming down hard,” he related.

“ We mainly fished in the Horseshoe. The outgoing tide was better overall. We used salmon roe, but had out ghost and grass shrimp out. My son caught a striper on the shrimp,” Piedade Sr. said.

PARDEE LAKE

Heavy Plants Boost Trout Catches

IONE- Lake Pardee trout plants are paying dividends, and in addition to the massive amount of rainbows left in the lake by the previous concessionaires, the Lake Pardee Recreation Company, the new concessionaires for East Bay Municipal Utilities District, the Rocky Mountain Recreation Company, is planting 1000 pound per week on Friday through the end of April with more plants anticipated after this date. This is in addition to the 13,000 pounds from the Calaveras Trout Farm before opening day in mid-February.

Robbie Dunham of‘ Koke Machine’ Guider Service was on the lake this week with John and Diana Stockton, and they were in search of kokanee, but it was the trout that wanted to play. After launching around 7:00 a. m., they headed up the river arm as far as the log boom before trolling down river towards the mouth.

Dunham said,“ Before the second rod was out, we had a fish on the first rod, and before the third rod was on, it was another fish on. We trolled to the river mouth and back to the log boom, and found some biters around Indian Head Rock later in the

30 hours of fishing through wind, chop, rain, hail, thunderstorms and cold temperatures is not easy. That’ s why I call all the anglers that have fished the Addathon Derby in the past or present, fishermen. It takes a certain breed of animal to stay competitive in this derby. Andy Doudna related to another element that made fishing difficult during the derby.

“ All winter long we’ ve had the warm temperatures, but what’ s key is we’ ve had a good influx of freshwater that flushed into the Delta. That along with the sudden drop in temperatures really made for tough fishing,” he related.

The Addathon Ironman Sturgeon derby is held bi-annually during the spring and fall and remains the only 100 % catchand-release sturgeon derby of its kind in Northern California.

Many of us are familiar of the term, slayer- a word to describe guys that are good at fishing. But I think the guys that fish Addathon deserve to be called fisherman, because everyone I’ ve met that’ s fished this derby are class acts and they really care about the state of California’ s sturgeon population.

For more information on the Addathon Ironman Sturgeon Derby, check out the Facebook page or e-mail Andy Doudna at addathonderby @ gmail. com.

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For vendor and event info, go to https:// sonomacountyoutdoorexpo. com or call Kevin Wodlinger @ 707-543-0117

Sponsored in part by:

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Under New Management

GREAT Fishing for: Trout • Kokanee • Catfish Large & Smallmouth Bass Crappie • Bluegill • Sunfish

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