One “Moore” Big Steelie!

Seems like the big steeies have been on a pretty good chew up and down the coast lately!

Here’s one more for the road: Northern California guide, Mike Moore holds up a beautiful Eel River buck that one of his clients caught and released recently. They were drifting eggs when the bruiser came calling.

Nice Fish!

Spend the extra $$ on a fish finder?

Hey JD,

I was reading your recent report on the Lowrance LMS 527C sonar and have a question for you. I know that you have fished for kokanee and trout, so I wanted to ask your expertise on is this unit for these gamefish.

Do you think this unit is more than adequate, or would you recommend spending a few more bucks and go to the next level of sonars like the Lowrance X-27C with 8000 watts and the most pixels?

The goal is to fish smarter with the sonar, but do you think the added cost would be worth it for trout and kokanee as the target fish?

–Andy

That LMS 527C is more than adequate — unless you’re hankering for a huge screen. I’ve got a buddy with one of those jumbo graphs that looks like a 52-inch flat screen plasma TV and we kid him about having to sit on a phone book just to see over it! The big screens are nice, but I don’t see the huge advantage.

In this day and age when everything is getting more expensive, I’d say save the money and use those extra couple hundred bucks for something like, oh maybe a half tank of gas or something…

Spring Shad Fishing

Spring’s here and that means it’s time for American Shad!
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Busted: Sturgeon Poachers using Baby Salmon for Bait!

How sick is this: Sturgeon poachers busted in Northern California recently had been using baby Chinook salmon for bait!

Wardens from the California Department of Fish and Game arrested nine suspects Friday morning for violations involving the illegal take of white sturgeon from the Sacramento River.
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Lost Coho Salmon Shows up in a Dutch River

How’s this for bizarre? A very lost coho salmon was recently taken by an angler in the River Meuse (Maas) in the Netherlands.
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Catching Bass on New Water

How do you catch bass on a lake you’ve never fished before?

I posed that very question to our intrepid bass expert, Big Fred Contaoi the other day. A valid topic, I figured, as he has been fishing a bunch of new waters in his first two seasons as a pro on the FLW Wal-Mart Tour for Orange County Choppers.

Many of the tournaments he’s been fishing have been on bodies of water that Fred had never laid eyes on before. Most have been quite unlike the lakes of the West that he has cut his teeth on. So, what the heck do you do in that situation?

In Fred’s case, he can only practice for a short time on a tournament lake. So, he often practices on other lakes in the area when the one that the tournament will be held on is off-limits.

“For example, my first-ever tournament on Tour was at Florida’s Lake Okeechobee,” he says. “The first thing I did was fish a nearby lake — Lake Toho — so I could get a feel for the fish in this general area,” he said (he caught a nice 8-pound largemouth that day). “Then, I drove my truck around Lake Okeechobee for a couple days to just check things out and talked to people at local tackle shops, etc.”

Fred says that, when you’re chatting up the local experts, ask them about the size and color of the forage that the fish are on and what sort of cover they like in the lake.

When it was finally legal for him to begin pre-fishing, Fred simply got out on the water and started sniffing around.

“You have to remember that bass are still bass no matter where they live and they all have the same basic needs like food and shelter,” he says. “Once you figure out what they like to eat and where they like to live, you can set up a game plan.”

It’s not a bad idea to also try to set up a couple “emergency plans” in case you get a sudden change in weather between the time you’re practicing and tournament day. For example, poll the locals about stuff like where the area’s bass go when a sudden cold front moves through (think deep water) or what happens when the north wind blows on that particular lake.

When you’re going to try a new water for the first time, hiring a guide isn’t a bad idea. You can learn more in a day with a guide than you could in weeks of doing it on your own. Depending on what part of the country you’re in, a guided bass trip can run you $125 to $250 per person…money well spent, to be sure.

Taxidermy Gone Bad!

As you guys know, I’m a huge fan of really bad fish mounts and this one, sent in by regular FishwithJD reader Rod Vin Steel, is a dandy! I’m not sure what the skunk has to do with anything, but it certainly adds to the appeal here…

Apparently, there’s a lot more where this came from:

“Just in case you’ve haven’t been in to Fosters Bighorn in Rio Vista, CA, you can have a lot of eye balls watching you eat lunch,” says Vin Steel. Click here to see more Taxidermy Gone Bad!

The Best Bait for Spring Steelhead

If I could use only one bait for spring steelhead, it would be, without question, a big, juicy nightcrawler.

‘Crawlers are the perfect choice this time of year. Think about it – the high flows of spring often wash a good smorgasboard of goodies (including worms) into the water, which steelhead, of course, key in on. Rivers also run pretty cold in the spring, so the fish will be more lethargic and a big meaty hunk of garden hackle is often the only thing that will get them excited. In addition, nightcrawlers also give you a nice “changeup” bait to use on streams that receive lots of angling pressure.

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Steelhead Rods for Bass?

JD, I mainly fish for salmon, trout and steelhead. I’ve never really had any desire to fish bass fish and have thought of them as kind of a boring fish. As I get older, however, I’m really finding myself wanting to go after the bucketmouths more often. I only live about half an hour from Clearlake and want to get good at bass fishing. I’m not worrying about figuring it out, I just want some help with rod selection for different techniques. My question is this…which of my steelhead and salmon rods will work best for crankbaits, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, jig fishing, and fishing plastics with different rigs, etc? I know most of my rods are long, but oh well, I’ll make due. Thanks very much for your help!
–Kevin

Kevin,

Without going into every rod you own, let’s keep it simple. Yes, most of your steelie sticks are going to be too long for normal bassing, but if you’re trying to save a little $$ by not buying a bunch of new stuff, you can get by with some of your current gear.

For crankbaits, use any Kwikfish or Hotshotting rods you may have — ones with a soft tip and some good backbone. For flipping jigs, stout back-bouncing rods should do the trick. Heavy salmon back-bouncers will also probably suffice for topwater frogging and tossing big swimbaits.

For finesse tactics like drop-shotting, use a light spinning rod.

Hope that helps!

–JD

Lamiglas X10 MTC

If you’re into tossing spinners and spoons for salmon and steelhead, the Lamiglas X10 MTC may just be your rod.
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