I got a chance to fish some spots where there isn't any public access.
My cousins Ronnie and Doug invited me to fish in a couple private fishing holes during my vacation. I had no idea what I was really in for, but I knew that if they said the fishing was great, it was going to be a treat.
Day 1
This is the boat we were going in.
I have to admit, I began to wonder about this excursion at this point.
We took the boat off of the trailer and tied it tight in the bed of the truck for the ride in to the spot over bumpy dirt roads.
We went a long way over some rough roads and through several locked cattle gates.
This was my view of the lake when we arrived. Spectacular!
Things were looking up!
Here's a view upstream.
We launched about 8:30 and hadn't even gotten started before Ronnie put a 19" rainbow in the boat, then a 13" one. Then Doug landed a 19" one and Ronnie an 18" fish right after.
I was messing with a stick bait, getting hits but hadn't hooked up. I switched to a spinner like the pros were using and soon got one about 17" out of the tail of a mild rapid.
What a nice grade of fish! We hadn't even seen a small fish yet.
With everybody on the board we anchored up in a spot where the current hit an underwater ridge and turned hard to cross the river. We picked up some 12" and 13" fish there then tried to run up river.
The flow was low and we had to stop. We pulled over to the shore, tied off and worked our way up river on foot.
Ronnie and Doug took a shortcut overland as I worked up the bank.
I caught a couple of these and knew that I needed to keep moving.
I saw a spot down through the trees that looked like it was deep and found an easy way down to the river in exactly the right place. The only paths are cattle and deer paths.
I guess that was a good call, I was rewarded with this nice bow. These fish were powerful. They were jumping over and over. They were unbelievable in open water and in a rapid they were even better. We lost lots of fish due to pulled hooks. They bent up our lures one after another.
I saw my cousins coming back from up above as I was taking this picture and called them down to the hole. Ronnie picked up another fish a little bigger than mine before we went back to the boat for lunch.
We worked our way back down river, picking through 12" to 19" fish, keeping a few big ones and the ones that looked like they wouldn't make it.
By about 3:30 we had enough fish to fill the orders from Aunt Mona's neighborhood with a few for the smoker and were ready to go.
That's Ronnie on the left and Doug on the right. For perspective Doug is 6'3".
Day 2
Ronnie had to work so Doug and I went back to the same place.
We soon found that the fish were even more energetic than the day before.
They were just flipping out when we would hook them. We loosened our drags and still lost most of the fish. If we tightened up the drag they would pull free against the drag, if we loosened the drag they would dive into the long grass and pull free in the weeds.
Even so, we caught and released several limits of 12" to 15" fish. We hooked and lost lots of fish. I lost a fish about 22" long, it would have been my PB rainbow. I lost the only brown trout we saw, right next to the boat, it was about 18" long. It would have been my PB brown.
Doug landed a 20" rainbow, it was the big fish of the day.
These are the ones that we kept for the neighbors.
Day 3
Ronnie was working again, filling in for a coworker . He pointed us to place a little farther down the hill.
The fishing was slow, in fact we didn't get a hit for 3 hours.
At about 11:30 Doug said that he had a hit on a cast to one bank. He reeled in and got some kind of tangle. About 20 yd down the bank I told him that I could see that he needed help pulling fish out of that hole and turned around and cast to that bank.
After 2 cranks of the reel handle the lure stopped, I set the hook and wasn't to impressed with the response
The fish made a couple head shakes then turned and headed down and under the boat. As I realized that this one was a little bigger, Doug saw the line getting close to the boat and asked if I wanted the net. I said no not yet it's going to be a while.
Then the fish came out of the glare on the water into view 15 ft down. I said "It's a toad." and it took off downstream. I got it's head turned before it made it to the long grass growing 20 yd downstream and it made a run for the grass 10 yd upstream.
I could see the fish darting around and around on the bottom, rolling and trying to rub the lure in the rocks and gravel below us. I could see it's hooked jaw. I managed to keep him off of the bottom and after a few good runs he was near the net.
When he saw the net, he took off again. After a couple of repeats of that, we finally got him in the net.
A 24" hook jawed rainbow.
Later Ronnie and Doug were telling me that they were sorry that we didn't catch more fish that day. I told them that I was very happy with the days catch.
I didn't weigh him but he's definitely my PB trout.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by fishinone
