Natural Lefty
05-17-2010, 08:39 PM
May 17
Aha Quin with Chuck and Cody Again
May 14
Since we didn't have much of a spring break, and Eunice didn't catch any fish when we did get away to Lake Isabella, we decided to go fishing at Aha Quin on the lower Colorado River. Eunice kept asking me to take her there, since we have gone there these past few Aprils and she always does well there. I think it's her favorite fishing spot. We timed the trip for a late afternoon/evening session, leaving Moreno Valley at 2 p.m. After taking a detour to avoid a construction project and major traffic jam on the 60 freeway in Beaumont, we arrived at our Aha Quin fishing spot at 5 p.m. As we got out of the car, I commented, "I'll go down and see if Chuck and Cody are fishing on the dock" semi-seriously. Chuck is the character we met last year at Aha Quin (mentioned on this blog last April) and Cody is his grandson. To my surprise, there they were. Both of them had Bluegills on there lines, there first of the trip. They had just gotten there too. Cody commented that this was there first time at Aha Quin since we saw them last year, amazingly enough, and I said it was the same for us. When I first saw them, I figured that they fished there all the time. I guess it's some sort of fishing ESP.
While Eunice went to the restroom, I started fishing. Cody said there were lots of Bluegills not too far from shore. I put a redworm on my hook, casted out to the right about 15 feet, Cody said, "That's perfect," and within 2 seconds, I had a good size Bluegill on the line. Aha Quin certainly is good to us. Over the next three hours, we caught about 20 fish, about equal numbers for both Eunice and myself. There were 6 really large Redear Sunfish, 1 Bass Eunice caught, and the rest were Bluegills. The Redears at Aha Quin average about 1 pound each, while the Bluegills average about 1/2 pound each. (This has been consistent over the years.) After awhile, I decided to try fishing with a tiny 1/80th ounce, red and white Crappie Jig, and wound up catching most of my fish on it -- 3 Redears, and about 5 Bluegills all on the same jig, which was nearly demolished by the time I retired for the evening. Eunice caught 1 Bluegill on it too. She kept retrieving it a little too steadily and quickly for the fish, so I told her to pause the lure, and sure enough, the Bluegill inhaled it. For me, I think it was a record catch of sorts, the most Redears I have caught on a lure in one day, maybe the most Bluegills, too -- I usually catch Bluegills on flies when I use artificials -- and the biggest volume poundage wise of Redears and Bluegills I have caught on jigs. We were two happy fisherpeople. By the way, there were a group of several Bass about 15 inches long each, that kept going after our fish as we were reeling them in, even though the sunfish we were catching were much too large for the Bass to eat. Eunice's Bass was her personal best, too. She doesn't catch many Bass, since we rarely fish for them. I thought it was a large Redear until she got it near shore. It was thin, but still good sized at 17 inches. The Bass looked like it was starving, and it was the first Largemouth Bass we have caught at Aha Quin. I asked Eunice if she wanted to keep it, and she wanted to keep her biggest catch of the day. When we brought it home and cleaned the fish, it turned out that the Bass had a large hook in its stomach which was preventing it from feeding, so the fish was starving. I think it also had laid eggs recently. Bass around that size are fairly common at Aha Quin (both Largemouth and Smallmouth) but they don't seem to get much bigger than that. The only fish we let go that day was a smaller female Bluegill; most of the Bluegills were colorful males in spawning condition, and all of them were of decent size.
Compared to the previous year, the claims of Chuck, who apparently is the world's greatest fisherman, were relatively lame. He told us about how he and his wife caught 40 large Bass at Lake Isabella in an hour and a half at the marina, after renting a boat and not catching anything -- but Chuck said it was dumb luck this time. He mentioned how he caught 8 large Striped Bass on one Slim Jim (one of those little pieces of dried sausage that gas stations sell). He also mentioned about how his name used to be mentioned in the Friday fishing report "every Friday" mostly with his catches from Vail Lake. That brought back memories, since my father and I used to go fishing there frequently (always from shore). Now, Vail Lake is closed to the public, sadly. Chuck told me one more story, as a former detective, involving Vail Lake. Apparently, on one occasion, there was a customer there who rented a fishing boat, but no fishing permit. He took the boat and parked it by the shore near his car, got a suitcase out of his car, and put it in the boat. One of the lake employees saw this happen, because he was chasing the guy down to ask him to pay $5 for the fishing permit. He got suspicious, and made the guy open the suitcase, since it did not look like it contained fishing equipment. It turned out that the guy's dead wife was in the suitcase, and the man admitted to having killed her. The first thing the employee saw was her lifeless head and red hair when the suitcase was opened. When asked why he did it, the man said he killed his wife because she had spent all of his money. The story about Vail Lake was pretty scintillating (and probably true), but overall, I think maybe Chuck's storytelling is slipping, or perhaps he has realized that there is a limit to how much I can tolerate before my eyes start to roll. But seriously, we had a really good time fishing with Chuck and Cody. Somehow, though, we outfished them by a wide margin that day, although they brought in an occasional fish.
At about 8 p.m., we headed to the Blue Line Motel in Blythe, which is run by the Jia family, originally from mainland China. They treat us like old friends and are highly solicitous of us. Mr. Jia met us and gave us a room with a refrigerator and freezer at a relatively low rate. However, we did not see Mrs. Jia, and the room was not in very good repair. The power frequently and unpredictably went out for a moment, before turning back on. It would have been comical had it not been worrisome. The plug on the air conditioner was too short to reach the electrical outlet, and of course, the room was hot. Temperatures were about 100 degrees in Blythe, although they were only about 80 degrees here in Moreno Valley. To top it off, when I tried to turn on the television, there was no remote control, and nothing showed on the screen. I went to inquire about how to get the television to work, and there was a hispanic man working there, which had never been the case before. It had always been Mr. and Mrs. Jia, with their son managing the place. Anyway, the new employee gave me a remote control, but I was left wondering what had happened to Mrs. Jia. Last year, Eunice told me that Mrs. Jia felt lonely and isolated living in Blythe, so Eunice tried to cheer her up. Now, we were worrying about her. Mr. Jia said that she had gone to bed early -- somehow I doubt that.
After a dinner of various crackers, some of Chef Boy Artie's creations, Gatorade, Powerade, and some of the smaller Bluegills, we went to bed.
May 15
After the previous day's success, we decided to head back to Aha Quin. Strangely, when we got to the dock, Chuck and Cody informed us that the fish weren't there, but there were some over by the launch ramp, where Eunice and I had caught some of the fish the previous day (including the Bass). Sure enough, there was a swarm of Bluegills visible 5-10 feet from shore at the launch ramp. Most of them appeared to be males in spawning mode. In fact, I could see several spawning nests just beyond the launch ramp concrete, being guarded by male Bluegills who were chasing other male Bluegills, and some female Bluegills around. It was kind of heartening to see, as a Bluegill lover. With my jig fishing success the day before, I decided to try using only artificial lures this day, while I rationed the few remaining nightcrawlers to Eunice. As it turned out, the fish weren't biting nearly as much on the jigs this day. I did catch 2 Bluegills on the jig at the launch ramp, but only after ditching the bobber I had been using the day before and casting to the fish that were close to shore. Eventually, even they stopped biting on jigs. I guess they got tired of seeing them, but even when I fished different spots, nothing went after the jigs. It was as though someone had flipped a switch to the "off" position. Fortunately for Eunice, the fish continued to bite on nightcrawler pieces. She caught about 9 that way, casting beyond the ones that were visible on the nests. The fish on the nests would not bite, anyway, but the other ones were biting. Most of the fish we caught were male Bluegills, but Eunice did catch one large Redear (female).
While we were by the launch ramp, a tribal-looking guy with a mohawk haircut walked onto the dock and talked to Chuck, who was still fishing there. I heard him say something about how they hadn't been enforcing the regulations before, and it looked like he was making Chuck leave our favorite little fishing dock. This is also a sort of gas station for boats, but previously, the employees always let us fish there as long as we didn't bother the boats. In fact, I think the employees found it entertaining to watch people catch fish there. Chuck remained calm, but obviously miffed. He called Cody, who had been fishing and swimming near us, over and said that they were going to leave. Fortunately, the fishing restriction only applied to the boat dock, not to the rest of Aha Quin.
Eventually, the worms ran out, so we decided to go to a place called Lost Lake Resort which also has good fishing, and a store that sells worms. For some reason, the fish were not much in evidence at Lost Lake, even on fresh nightcrawlers. (I had since given up on having a lures-only fishing day.) I eventually lost one which felt good size, but my hook came off due to a knot defect, apparently. We headed over to the other public area there, where the backwater meets the river, but it was swarming with campers, picnickers, swimmers, and boaters, so we decided not to even try there. Instead, we went to a place called Hidden Valley, which we had never been to before. It also is private, but we found a couple of public places there where we could fish. It seemed like a friendly place, with no "no trespassing" signs or anything of the kind. We stopped by a bridge built especially for golf carts, which are a common form of transportation around the river, and a launch ramp which spanned both sides of a backwater channel about 75 feet wide. There were lots of reeds in the area, and it looked pretty fishy. Sure enough, the moment I casted there with a worm, I hooked something large. It stripped some line off my reel, then headed into the nearby reeds. I thought about giving the line slack and hoping the fish would swim out of the reeds, but decided I had a better chance of landing the fish if I tried to steer it away from the reeds. In any case, my 4 pound leader broke. What a shame. Later, I caught a rather large Bluegill there, with brilliant pink and lavender colors, and Eunice caught a 1 pound Redear in the same spot.
Since Eunice saw another fisherman catch a 4-5 pound Flathead Catfish at Aha Quin the evening before, she wanted to return to Aha Quin around dusk to try for catfish. As it turns out, we saw a group of 3 people catch 2 smaller Channel Catfish, and a typical 1 pound Redear, while I tried in vain to get something to bite my jig, and Eunice once again outfished the rest of us by catching another big Redear and 2 more Bluegills before we called it a day. I guess this was her day. This trip was her Mother's Day present, in a way. We released a smaller female Bluegill I caught on my jig, and kept the other fish. One of the guys who were fishing near us mentioned that he netted a 16 pound Flathead Catfish for Chuck the evening before, after we had left. Chuck had told me that he caught a big Flathead the night before. This time, he wasn't kidding.
Once again, Chef Boy Artie, Gatorade, Powerade, and Bluegills were on the dinner menu, but this time, it was Bluegill sashimi (yum) and Bluegill soup.
May 16
We checked out of the motel, unable to find either Mr. or Mrs. Jia. Both of us are under the impression that something happened to Mrs. Jia, since we never saw her. Since we had basically been catching sunfish species, we decided to try some new spots for possible Catfish or Striped Bass, etc. I think we would have been better off, fishing wise, going back to places we know. I ended up trying a bunch of canal spots around Blythe while Eunice sat in the car, avoiding the oppressive heat. I did catch 2 Smallmouth Bass at the first spot I tried, one of them, a pretty 12 incher which gave my rod a good bend. I showed the fish to Eunice, then released it. It is a pretty strange experience catching these cool-water fish in a canal in the searing desert. A while later at another spot where nothing was biting, an official looking truck pulled up behind my car. It was a fish and game Warden. After some awkward introductions, we had a good conversation while he politely inspected our catches and we talked about fishing. His name was Officer Shanley, and he congratulated us on our good catch upon inspecting our cooler full of frozen fish. (I mentioned that we knew about the new combined panfish limit of 25 fish per person in California, and we had about 25 of them in the cooler, which was half of our double limit of 50.) He told us about a fishing place called Goose Flats south of town, so we headed there next. It turned out to be a disappointment. The river bank there is steep, the river swift and hard to fish, not really our type of fishing. I find that the current just sweeps our lines downstream, and nothing bites, in swift water like that, at least in my experience. There was a small -- really small -- branch of the river which ran through a wooded area. There was a pool downstream from the road that was about 20 feet wide and 50 feet long, so we decided to try fishing there. I caught a couple of tiny Bluegills on worms, put them back, then added a bobber to cast farther down the pool. I immediately hooked a Largemouth Bass there, about 12 inches long, but the pool was full of branches and roots, and the fish immediately headed for some branches on the left side of the pool. I tried getting it out of there to no avail, and eventually, my line broke. Oh well! The interesting thing is that another, larger Bass followed the one I had hooked. I am guessing that I hooked the male, and the other one was the lone adult female of the pool. There was also a colorful 7 inch male Redear on a nest just in front of me, another one of those heartening signs. It's probable mate was just to my right. Neither one of them would bite on our offerings, but we didn't want to prevent them from completing their spawning activities, anyway.
After that, Eunice wanted to go to a place called Oxbow Lake where we had fished once before. It turned out that nothing was biting there, surprisingly. We also tried a few more canal spots, but could only manage a few small bites, no fish. We also checked out a place called Cibola Wildlife Refuge, but decided not to fish there when we found out the parking fee was $10 per vehicle, especially since it was about time for us to go home. We finally ran out of time and energy, ate odds and ends in the car around, then drove home. Next time, I guess it will be back to Aha Quin for us, and maybe, Hidden Valley and Lost Lake. Hopefully, the weather will be a bit cooler next time, and the fishing just as hot.
Aha Quin with Chuck and Cody Again
May 14
Since we didn't have much of a spring break, and Eunice didn't catch any fish when we did get away to Lake Isabella, we decided to go fishing at Aha Quin on the lower Colorado River. Eunice kept asking me to take her there, since we have gone there these past few Aprils and she always does well there. I think it's her favorite fishing spot. We timed the trip for a late afternoon/evening session, leaving Moreno Valley at 2 p.m. After taking a detour to avoid a construction project and major traffic jam on the 60 freeway in Beaumont, we arrived at our Aha Quin fishing spot at 5 p.m. As we got out of the car, I commented, "I'll go down and see if Chuck and Cody are fishing on the dock" semi-seriously. Chuck is the character we met last year at Aha Quin (mentioned on this blog last April) and Cody is his grandson. To my surprise, there they were. Both of them had Bluegills on there lines, there first of the trip. They had just gotten there too. Cody commented that this was there first time at Aha Quin since we saw them last year, amazingly enough, and I said it was the same for us. When I first saw them, I figured that they fished there all the time. I guess it's some sort of fishing ESP.
While Eunice went to the restroom, I started fishing. Cody said there were lots of Bluegills not too far from shore. I put a redworm on my hook, casted out to the right about 15 feet, Cody said, "That's perfect," and within 2 seconds, I had a good size Bluegill on the line. Aha Quin certainly is good to us. Over the next three hours, we caught about 20 fish, about equal numbers for both Eunice and myself. There were 6 really large Redear Sunfish, 1 Bass Eunice caught, and the rest were Bluegills. The Redears at Aha Quin average about 1 pound each, while the Bluegills average about 1/2 pound each. (This has been consistent over the years.) After awhile, I decided to try fishing with a tiny 1/80th ounce, red and white Crappie Jig, and wound up catching most of my fish on it -- 3 Redears, and about 5 Bluegills all on the same jig, which was nearly demolished by the time I retired for the evening. Eunice caught 1 Bluegill on it too. She kept retrieving it a little too steadily and quickly for the fish, so I told her to pause the lure, and sure enough, the Bluegill inhaled it. For me, I think it was a record catch of sorts, the most Redears I have caught on a lure in one day, maybe the most Bluegills, too -- I usually catch Bluegills on flies when I use artificials -- and the biggest volume poundage wise of Redears and Bluegills I have caught on jigs. We were two happy fisherpeople. By the way, there were a group of several Bass about 15 inches long each, that kept going after our fish as we were reeling them in, even though the sunfish we were catching were much too large for the Bass to eat. Eunice's Bass was her personal best, too. She doesn't catch many Bass, since we rarely fish for them. I thought it was a large Redear until she got it near shore. It was thin, but still good sized at 17 inches. The Bass looked like it was starving, and it was the first Largemouth Bass we have caught at Aha Quin. I asked Eunice if she wanted to keep it, and she wanted to keep her biggest catch of the day. When we brought it home and cleaned the fish, it turned out that the Bass had a large hook in its stomach which was preventing it from feeding, so the fish was starving. I think it also had laid eggs recently. Bass around that size are fairly common at Aha Quin (both Largemouth and Smallmouth) but they don't seem to get much bigger than that. The only fish we let go that day was a smaller female Bluegill; most of the Bluegills were colorful males in spawning condition, and all of them were of decent size.
Compared to the previous year, the claims of Chuck, who apparently is the world's greatest fisherman, were relatively lame. He told us about how he and his wife caught 40 large Bass at Lake Isabella in an hour and a half at the marina, after renting a boat and not catching anything -- but Chuck said it was dumb luck this time. He mentioned how he caught 8 large Striped Bass on one Slim Jim (one of those little pieces of dried sausage that gas stations sell). He also mentioned about how his name used to be mentioned in the Friday fishing report "every Friday" mostly with his catches from Vail Lake. That brought back memories, since my father and I used to go fishing there frequently (always from shore). Now, Vail Lake is closed to the public, sadly. Chuck told me one more story, as a former detective, involving Vail Lake. Apparently, on one occasion, there was a customer there who rented a fishing boat, but no fishing permit. He took the boat and parked it by the shore near his car, got a suitcase out of his car, and put it in the boat. One of the lake employees saw this happen, because he was chasing the guy down to ask him to pay $5 for the fishing permit. He got suspicious, and made the guy open the suitcase, since it did not look like it contained fishing equipment. It turned out that the guy's dead wife was in the suitcase, and the man admitted to having killed her. The first thing the employee saw was her lifeless head and red hair when the suitcase was opened. When asked why he did it, the man said he killed his wife because she had spent all of his money. The story about Vail Lake was pretty scintillating (and probably true), but overall, I think maybe Chuck's storytelling is slipping, or perhaps he has realized that there is a limit to how much I can tolerate before my eyes start to roll. But seriously, we had a really good time fishing with Chuck and Cody. Somehow, though, we outfished them by a wide margin that day, although they brought in an occasional fish.
At about 8 p.m., we headed to the Blue Line Motel in Blythe, which is run by the Jia family, originally from mainland China. They treat us like old friends and are highly solicitous of us. Mr. Jia met us and gave us a room with a refrigerator and freezer at a relatively low rate. However, we did not see Mrs. Jia, and the room was not in very good repair. The power frequently and unpredictably went out for a moment, before turning back on. It would have been comical had it not been worrisome. The plug on the air conditioner was too short to reach the electrical outlet, and of course, the room was hot. Temperatures were about 100 degrees in Blythe, although they were only about 80 degrees here in Moreno Valley. To top it off, when I tried to turn on the television, there was no remote control, and nothing showed on the screen. I went to inquire about how to get the television to work, and there was a hispanic man working there, which had never been the case before. It had always been Mr. and Mrs. Jia, with their son managing the place. Anyway, the new employee gave me a remote control, but I was left wondering what had happened to Mrs. Jia. Last year, Eunice told me that Mrs. Jia felt lonely and isolated living in Blythe, so Eunice tried to cheer her up. Now, we were worrying about her. Mr. Jia said that she had gone to bed early -- somehow I doubt that.
After a dinner of various crackers, some of Chef Boy Artie's creations, Gatorade, Powerade, and some of the smaller Bluegills, we went to bed.
May 15
After the previous day's success, we decided to head back to Aha Quin. Strangely, when we got to the dock, Chuck and Cody informed us that the fish weren't there, but there were some over by the launch ramp, where Eunice and I had caught some of the fish the previous day (including the Bass). Sure enough, there was a swarm of Bluegills visible 5-10 feet from shore at the launch ramp. Most of them appeared to be males in spawning mode. In fact, I could see several spawning nests just beyond the launch ramp concrete, being guarded by male Bluegills who were chasing other male Bluegills, and some female Bluegills around. It was kind of heartening to see, as a Bluegill lover. With my jig fishing success the day before, I decided to try using only artificial lures this day, while I rationed the few remaining nightcrawlers to Eunice. As it turned out, the fish weren't biting nearly as much on the jigs this day. I did catch 2 Bluegills on the jig at the launch ramp, but only after ditching the bobber I had been using the day before and casting to the fish that were close to shore. Eventually, even they stopped biting on jigs. I guess they got tired of seeing them, but even when I fished different spots, nothing went after the jigs. It was as though someone had flipped a switch to the "off" position. Fortunately for Eunice, the fish continued to bite on nightcrawler pieces. She caught about 9 that way, casting beyond the ones that were visible on the nests. The fish on the nests would not bite, anyway, but the other ones were biting. Most of the fish we caught were male Bluegills, but Eunice did catch one large Redear (female).
While we were by the launch ramp, a tribal-looking guy with a mohawk haircut walked onto the dock and talked to Chuck, who was still fishing there. I heard him say something about how they hadn't been enforcing the regulations before, and it looked like he was making Chuck leave our favorite little fishing dock. This is also a sort of gas station for boats, but previously, the employees always let us fish there as long as we didn't bother the boats. In fact, I think the employees found it entertaining to watch people catch fish there. Chuck remained calm, but obviously miffed. He called Cody, who had been fishing and swimming near us, over and said that they were going to leave. Fortunately, the fishing restriction only applied to the boat dock, not to the rest of Aha Quin.
Eventually, the worms ran out, so we decided to go to a place called Lost Lake Resort which also has good fishing, and a store that sells worms. For some reason, the fish were not much in evidence at Lost Lake, even on fresh nightcrawlers. (I had since given up on having a lures-only fishing day.) I eventually lost one which felt good size, but my hook came off due to a knot defect, apparently. We headed over to the other public area there, where the backwater meets the river, but it was swarming with campers, picnickers, swimmers, and boaters, so we decided not to even try there. Instead, we went to a place called Hidden Valley, which we had never been to before. It also is private, but we found a couple of public places there where we could fish. It seemed like a friendly place, with no "no trespassing" signs or anything of the kind. We stopped by a bridge built especially for golf carts, which are a common form of transportation around the river, and a launch ramp which spanned both sides of a backwater channel about 75 feet wide. There were lots of reeds in the area, and it looked pretty fishy. Sure enough, the moment I casted there with a worm, I hooked something large. It stripped some line off my reel, then headed into the nearby reeds. I thought about giving the line slack and hoping the fish would swim out of the reeds, but decided I had a better chance of landing the fish if I tried to steer it away from the reeds. In any case, my 4 pound leader broke. What a shame. Later, I caught a rather large Bluegill there, with brilliant pink and lavender colors, and Eunice caught a 1 pound Redear in the same spot.
Since Eunice saw another fisherman catch a 4-5 pound Flathead Catfish at Aha Quin the evening before, she wanted to return to Aha Quin around dusk to try for catfish. As it turns out, we saw a group of 3 people catch 2 smaller Channel Catfish, and a typical 1 pound Redear, while I tried in vain to get something to bite my jig, and Eunice once again outfished the rest of us by catching another big Redear and 2 more Bluegills before we called it a day. I guess this was her day. This trip was her Mother's Day present, in a way. We released a smaller female Bluegill I caught on my jig, and kept the other fish. One of the guys who were fishing near us mentioned that he netted a 16 pound Flathead Catfish for Chuck the evening before, after we had left. Chuck had told me that he caught a big Flathead the night before. This time, he wasn't kidding.
Once again, Chef Boy Artie, Gatorade, Powerade, and Bluegills were on the dinner menu, but this time, it was Bluegill sashimi (yum) and Bluegill soup.
May 16
We checked out of the motel, unable to find either Mr. or Mrs. Jia. Both of us are under the impression that something happened to Mrs. Jia, since we never saw her. Since we had basically been catching sunfish species, we decided to try some new spots for possible Catfish or Striped Bass, etc. I think we would have been better off, fishing wise, going back to places we know. I ended up trying a bunch of canal spots around Blythe while Eunice sat in the car, avoiding the oppressive heat. I did catch 2 Smallmouth Bass at the first spot I tried, one of them, a pretty 12 incher which gave my rod a good bend. I showed the fish to Eunice, then released it. It is a pretty strange experience catching these cool-water fish in a canal in the searing desert. A while later at another spot where nothing was biting, an official looking truck pulled up behind my car. It was a fish and game Warden. After some awkward introductions, we had a good conversation while he politely inspected our catches and we talked about fishing. His name was Officer Shanley, and he congratulated us on our good catch upon inspecting our cooler full of frozen fish. (I mentioned that we knew about the new combined panfish limit of 25 fish per person in California, and we had about 25 of them in the cooler, which was half of our double limit of 50.) He told us about a fishing place called Goose Flats south of town, so we headed there next. It turned out to be a disappointment. The river bank there is steep, the river swift and hard to fish, not really our type of fishing. I find that the current just sweeps our lines downstream, and nothing bites, in swift water like that, at least in my experience. There was a small -- really small -- branch of the river which ran through a wooded area. There was a pool downstream from the road that was about 20 feet wide and 50 feet long, so we decided to try fishing there. I caught a couple of tiny Bluegills on worms, put them back, then added a bobber to cast farther down the pool. I immediately hooked a Largemouth Bass there, about 12 inches long, but the pool was full of branches and roots, and the fish immediately headed for some branches on the left side of the pool. I tried getting it out of there to no avail, and eventually, my line broke. Oh well! The interesting thing is that another, larger Bass followed the one I had hooked. I am guessing that I hooked the male, and the other one was the lone adult female of the pool. There was also a colorful 7 inch male Redear on a nest just in front of me, another one of those heartening signs. It's probable mate was just to my right. Neither one of them would bite on our offerings, but we didn't want to prevent them from completing their spawning activities, anyway.
After that, Eunice wanted to go to a place called Oxbow Lake where we had fished once before. It turned out that nothing was biting there, surprisingly. We also tried a few more canal spots, but could only manage a few small bites, no fish. We also checked out a place called Cibola Wildlife Refuge, but decided not to fish there when we found out the parking fee was $10 per vehicle, especially since it was about time for us to go home. We finally ran out of time and energy, ate odds and ends in the car around, then drove home. Next time, I guess it will be back to Aha Quin for us, and maybe, Hidden Valley and Lost Lake. Hopefully, the weather will be a bit cooler next time, and the fishing just as hot.