BeMorWize
04-02-2011, 11:46 AM
Hey Everyone,
What a day, what a day. April's Fools day almost had the best of me!!!
We were suppose to leave my area in Santa Ana at 4:45am to make it to Pyramid by 6am-6:15am. My buddy who was towing my boat didn't make it to my house until 5:30am so we were already behind. Got the boat on, checked the equipment and we were on our way.
Stopped by the local gas station to stock up on the ice, coffee, snacks and hopped on the 22fwy to get onto the 5fwy. By this time, it was almost 6am.
Traffic wasn't too bad and we got to Gallion's by around 7:30am. Ordered our sandwiches, got some worms (I had some left over anchovies and sardines from Monday, 3/28/11 from the Lake Skinner trip so no need to get anymore). Then as we head to the car, I get a text from my g/f. She says she's been seeing someone else for the last couple of weeks and that she was sorry. I've been with her for 5 years and she lives with me so I was SHOCKED to hear/read the text! I was kind of blank minded, I was soo much in a rush that it didn't really come to me.
My buddie then says, man, it's April fools day and she's trying to get you bro. I think twice and didn't remember it was April 1st. I replied back with, "Im sorry to hear that too, but I did pack all your stuff and it's outside so when you wake up, be sure to get your things before the trash man does." Ah, she almost got me!! She then says Aprils fools day and that she was bummed cause she never played any tricks and now she knows why haha.
Anywhat, on to the fishing.
We get back back on the freeway and get to Lake Pyramid by 8:30am or so. Paid our fees and headed to the launch ramp.
I haven 't been back to Pyramid for about a year or 2 and this was my friends 1st time at the MID.
We launch the boat and I get to the docks and tie up to start the motor. Pull the choke, pump the prime twice, and pull!! Nothing, oh wells, the motor is probably cold or the altitude is messing with the fluids? (its a 9.9 Merc, works on the 1st pull 4 out of 5 times even when it's cold). I check the gas lines, the "on" switch, and everything is normal. I pull again, nothing! By this time, my buddie is parking the truck and has no idea the boat hasn't started yet.
It's about 9am-9:10am right about now and I'm looking out at the water just dreaming of what is in stored for today. Look down, and start pulling the motor to get it started again. After about 15 pulls, my motor started but it was in a lock mode where you can rev the motor and it's not in gear. Great I thought, at least it's running, let's just let her warm up and told my buddie to get the rods set up while it's warming up. We get the rods prepped for the troll with Urigs and everything on the boat is situated.
10 mins past and then I put the motor into neutral and the motor craps out. I'm like, WTF is going on today. Screw it, if it won't work in idle for the troll and we'll just rev the motor and click it over to drive and not let it hit idle. Success! We start going out of the channel at about 7-8 miles an hour (motor can't go any slower or it will choke out and die). We get to the Island and we see Trail Blazer and his buddies. TB was looking out for my Gregor Alum to say hi and I was doing the same for his green boat but at this speed, it was impossible. I wanted to drop in and say hi but we couldn't since the motor would only go at a high speed maybe around 7-8 mph.
We tried metering the fish around the Island and the side of the dam for nothing. I thought maybe I was going too fast so I tell me buddy, it looks like the troll is a "no" go since we can't slow the boat down (when we do, it dies). We start heading back in to the launch ramp and decide to bait it there just in case the motor doesn't want to turn on again. After about 15 minutes of drifting anchovies, a crawler, and a sardine, I started working on the motor again just double checking the wires, fluids etc. By this time, it was around 10:30 or so and we hadn't even really fished besides throwing out 3 poles while I fixed the motor. My friend is not liking his first experience there and I was almost ready to paddle in and call it a day with all that's happened.
At around 11am, doing the same things I've been doing for the first hour, the motor starts. This time it's in neutral and it's idling perfect. Finally!!! My buddy says, what happened? I said I have no idea, I've been doing the same thing and now it decides to run and it's running good as usual. This was the Aprils fool's stone block #2. #1 was my g/f texting me that BS as a joke along with leaving late.
With the motor running and it's just a little past 11am, I asked my friend if he wanted to salvage the day and fish, or get the boat out of the water and take the 1.75 hr track back to Santa Ana and then get the motor looked at. He said screw it, so many things were off today, let's off set it more and do the opposite. So we decided to fish instead of going home and getting the motor looked at.
We drop our lines in the water and started for the troll. I wanted to try something different since we metered some fish aorund 15ft-25ft around the channel so we used LeadCore and went 4-5 colors down. First rod in with a Rapala and not even 25 ft passes and it's FISH ON! I set the hook, pass the rod to my friend and let him battle the first fish. After a 30-40 second battle, the fish is next to the boat about 5-10 ft under and I prep the net. DINK!!! WTH was that?!?! The Rapala lure hit the bottom of the boat and flew up and the fish is gone! What a TEASE!! My buddy looks to me and says, Man, what else can go wrong! I tell him its April's Fools day and the fish g*ds are having their time with us now since we passed the other 2 tests. Test #3 was popping my friends cherry with a striper on the Troll.
So after that, we get settled and start our lap again. This time we both drop a rod in and as soon as we put our rods in place, my rod starts singing..ZzzzZZZzzZZZ'. Landed a nice little schoolie about 1.5lbs in the channel and continued working the channel.
Working the same area, depth, and lures, we managed a total of 5 stripers and 1 farmed. 3pm rolls around and we see Trail Blazer with his brothers and I asked if it was him and indeed it was. We continued working our way in the channel to the launch ramp and I farmed the last fish of the day, small 1.5 lber that I tried bouncing into the boat and he shook off the lure. Oh wells, we'll gettem next time.
By this time, we headed in around 3pm-3:15pm. At the launch ramp, I had a chance to meet Trail Blazer. What a nice boat you have TB, bad ***** killing/trolling machine!
TB shared some of what was working for him and his brothers that day and I told him I'd swear to keep it a secret since it was a Recon mission for him for the SmackDown at the end of this month. Get our boat up and we headed back. Left there at 3:30pm and got home by 6:30pm due to traffic, dam traffic!!!
We ended the day with a total of 5 stripers from 1.5-2.4 lbers and farmed 2.
Leadcore at 4-5 colors with various Rapala Lures
Mainly fishing the channel for roughly 4-4.5 hours
No Urigs since the Stripeys couldn't lay off of the LC.
Thanks for reading and Thank you to Trail Blazer, Gary, and Shock for the latest updates and information that helped me get my buddy on his Stripers.
Til Next Time, tight lines!
What a day, what a day. April's Fools day almost had the best of me!!!
We were suppose to leave my area in Santa Ana at 4:45am to make it to Pyramid by 6am-6:15am. My buddy who was towing my boat didn't make it to my house until 5:30am so we were already behind. Got the boat on, checked the equipment and we were on our way.
Stopped by the local gas station to stock up on the ice, coffee, snacks and hopped on the 22fwy to get onto the 5fwy. By this time, it was almost 6am.
Traffic wasn't too bad and we got to Gallion's by around 7:30am. Ordered our sandwiches, got some worms (I had some left over anchovies and sardines from Monday, 3/28/11 from the Lake Skinner trip so no need to get anymore). Then as we head to the car, I get a text from my g/f. She says she's been seeing someone else for the last couple of weeks and that she was sorry. I've been with her for 5 years and she lives with me so I was SHOCKED to hear/read the text! I was kind of blank minded, I was soo much in a rush that it didn't really come to me.
My buddie then says, man, it's April fools day and she's trying to get you bro. I think twice and didn't remember it was April 1st. I replied back with, "Im sorry to hear that too, but I did pack all your stuff and it's outside so when you wake up, be sure to get your things before the trash man does." Ah, she almost got me!! She then says Aprils fools day and that she was bummed cause she never played any tricks and now she knows why haha.
Anywhat, on to the fishing.
We get back back on the freeway and get to Lake Pyramid by 8:30am or so. Paid our fees and headed to the launch ramp.
I haven 't been back to Pyramid for about a year or 2 and this was my friends 1st time at the MID.
We launch the boat and I get to the docks and tie up to start the motor. Pull the choke, pump the prime twice, and pull!! Nothing, oh wells, the motor is probably cold or the altitude is messing with the fluids? (its a 9.9 Merc, works on the 1st pull 4 out of 5 times even when it's cold). I check the gas lines, the "on" switch, and everything is normal. I pull again, nothing! By this time, my buddie is parking the truck and has no idea the boat hasn't started yet.
It's about 9am-9:10am right about now and I'm looking out at the water just dreaming of what is in stored for today. Look down, and start pulling the motor to get it started again. After about 15 pulls, my motor started but it was in a lock mode where you can rev the motor and it's not in gear. Great I thought, at least it's running, let's just let her warm up and told my buddie to get the rods set up while it's warming up. We get the rods prepped for the troll with Urigs and everything on the boat is situated.
10 mins past and then I put the motor into neutral and the motor craps out. I'm like, WTF is going on today. Screw it, if it won't work in idle for the troll and we'll just rev the motor and click it over to drive and not let it hit idle. Success! We start going out of the channel at about 7-8 miles an hour (motor can't go any slower or it will choke out and die). We get to the Island and we see Trail Blazer and his buddies. TB was looking out for my Gregor Alum to say hi and I was doing the same for his green boat but at this speed, it was impossible. I wanted to drop in and say hi but we couldn't since the motor would only go at a high speed maybe around 7-8 mph.
We tried metering the fish around the Island and the side of the dam for nothing. I thought maybe I was going too fast so I tell me buddy, it looks like the troll is a "no" go since we can't slow the boat down (when we do, it dies). We start heading back in to the launch ramp and decide to bait it there just in case the motor doesn't want to turn on again. After about 15 minutes of drifting anchovies, a crawler, and a sardine, I started working on the motor again just double checking the wires, fluids etc. By this time, it was around 10:30 or so and we hadn't even really fished besides throwing out 3 poles while I fixed the motor. My friend is not liking his first experience there and I was almost ready to paddle in and call it a day with all that's happened.
At around 11am, doing the same things I've been doing for the first hour, the motor starts. This time it's in neutral and it's idling perfect. Finally!!! My buddy says, what happened? I said I have no idea, I've been doing the same thing and now it decides to run and it's running good as usual. This was the Aprils fool's stone block #2. #1 was my g/f texting me that BS as a joke along with leaving late.
With the motor running and it's just a little past 11am, I asked my friend if he wanted to salvage the day and fish, or get the boat out of the water and take the 1.75 hr track back to Santa Ana and then get the motor looked at. He said screw it, so many things were off today, let's off set it more and do the opposite. So we decided to fish instead of going home and getting the motor looked at.
We drop our lines in the water and started for the troll. I wanted to try something different since we metered some fish aorund 15ft-25ft around the channel so we used LeadCore and went 4-5 colors down. First rod in with a Rapala and not even 25 ft passes and it's FISH ON! I set the hook, pass the rod to my friend and let him battle the first fish. After a 30-40 second battle, the fish is next to the boat about 5-10 ft under and I prep the net. DINK!!! WTH was that?!?! The Rapala lure hit the bottom of the boat and flew up and the fish is gone! What a TEASE!! My buddy looks to me and says, Man, what else can go wrong! I tell him its April's Fools day and the fish g*ds are having their time with us now since we passed the other 2 tests. Test #3 was popping my friends cherry with a striper on the Troll.
So after that, we get settled and start our lap again. This time we both drop a rod in and as soon as we put our rods in place, my rod starts singing..ZzzzZZZzzZZZ'. Landed a nice little schoolie about 1.5lbs in the channel and continued working the channel.
Working the same area, depth, and lures, we managed a total of 5 stripers and 1 farmed. 3pm rolls around and we see Trail Blazer with his brothers and I asked if it was him and indeed it was. We continued working our way in the channel to the launch ramp and I farmed the last fish of the day, small 1.5 lber that I tried bouncing into the boat and he shook off the lure. Oh wells, we'll gettem next time.
By this time, we headed in around 3pm-3:15pm. At the launch ramp, I had a chance to meet Trail Blazer. What a nice boat you have TB, bad ***** killing/trolling machine!
TB shared some of what was working for him and his brothers that day and I told him I'd swear to keep it a secret since it was a Recon mission for him for the SmackDown at the end of this month. Get our boat up and we headed back. Left there at 3:30pm and got home by 6:30pm due to traffic, dam traffic!!!
We ended the day with a total of 5 stripers from 1.5-2.4 lbers and farmed 2.
Leadcore at 4-5 colors with various Rapala Lures
Mainly fishing the channel for roughly 4-4.5 hours
No Urigs since the Stripeys couldn't lay off of the LC.
Thanks for reading and Thank you to Trail Blazer, Gary, and Shock for the latest updates and information that helped me get my buddy on his Stripers.
Til Next Time, tight lines!