Fish with JD

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Boys Day Off: Lake Nacimento fishing trip

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So sometimes you just have to get out and get away from town…and go do something a little different once in a while.

That’s exactly what K-Dawg, Scotty & I did yesterday when we headed down to Central California’s Lake Nacimento, where we chased after white bass and spotts. It was a great day just getting out and hanging with the fellas, away from all the drama of guiding and commercial crabbing.

Luckily, we put together a few patterns and had a nice day of catching…for the cherry on top!

Here’s a little pictorial. While we found very few fish near the inlets (not much water this year), we managed to locate some nice schools of shad…and, I the afternoon, there were some boils…which led to a flurry of fun topwater action…

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But we also caught most of our fish on small plastics worked near the bottom…

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Scotty with a nice spotty…

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Fun little exotics: white bass look like a striper and and crappie got together. Called “sand bass” or “sandies” in the South, they are pretty fun on light gear…

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The lake was lower that last time we went a few years back, but after a rainless winter, I expected the lake elevation to be even lower…

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Another nice spott on the popper…

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Good times and a nice sunset on the way home…

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What a season: American River Steelhead, 2013!

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We here in Sacramento, CA were treated to the best winter steelhead season the American River has produced since the mid 1980’s. Considering I’ve fished this river since the 1970’s, it was a delight to see her healthy and vibrant again. For several years, the American had become the “Ameri-Can’t” and catching an adult steelhead was a difficult proposition.

There has been a strong effort to improve the river’s fisheries in recent years — spawning gravel has been placed in the American’s upper reaches and water temps are cooler in the summers. Hopefully, 2013 was just the beginning of this great urban river’s revival!

The Craziest Kings on the Planet!

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God, I love king salmon! They’re such badass creatures, aren’t they? And there’s nowhere on the planet better than Alaska’s Nushagak River to experience these bad boys in all their glory. In June and July, the ‘Nush gets invaded by mind-boggling numbers of fish, and the kings themselves are the craziest, most aggressive, over-the-top snappy ones you’ll find anywhere.

Though I’m retired now, I spent 7 years guiding this amazing stream at a lodge called Alaska King Salmon Adventures and, every year about this time, that little itch starts…the little twinge at the back of my skull that tells me I should be thinking about heading north. While I haven’t been to the river in several years, the memories of its loco kings still haunt my dreams. Click here to read more…

British Steel

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Okay,so Richard Masters and Guy Lyburn, our U.K. fishing correspondents, took my advice recently and headed for the Holy Grounds of steelhead fishing: British Columbia. Here’s their report…

Go to BC next, JD told us as we sat around the campfire in Salmon Camp along the Klamath River back in 2009. So, much planning later, we headed to the extreme North of Canada, fly rods packed together with high hopes. Three flights and 18 hours later from Manchester, England we hit Smithers, BC and the cheap motel beds never looked more welcome.

After seven days of crumpled maps, roadtrips, too much money spent in tackle shops, Oreo cookies and full srength Coke, we hit the Skeena river, after a slow start on a low Bulkley river and only one fish between us.

Three days of magic followed, with the Skeena providing seven solid Steel medals for an olympic effort from Team UK! Cheers and thanks for the advice about BC. I’ve just got to go back…