Fish with JD

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The Spirit of Thanksgiving… In the Garage

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I saw it all happen in super slow-mo. The old woman, who looked like she could be the poster lady for sweet, all-American grandmothers, turned her ankle on the curb and fell hard onto the pavement in front of the supermarket. She was on her way out of the store, carrying two brown paper sacks full of Thanksgiving groceries when she crashed to earth with a sickening thud that I won’t soon forget the sound of. I was only a few feet away but couldn’t get the words out of my mouth quick enough.

Watch out for the….curb!

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SF Bay Halibut: Time for Good Eating!

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Question: What’s the best eating fish we have here in Northern California? King salmon? Nope. Cold water trout? Not even close! Mahi Mahi from Bullards Bar Reservoir? (old joke) Nah! Sixty-pound baby heron-eating brown trout from Mentiroso Lake? No! How about lingcod? Wrong again! Of course, this is very subjective, but I feel that you just can’t beat fresh halibut. Ohhh yeeaa!

We’re talking California halibut here, not Pacific halibut (the kind you get up in Alaska). California halibut range from Baja up to southern Oregon. They’re much smaller than the barn door-sized Pacifics that can weigh up to 400 pounds, but who the heck needs a truck load of fillets the size of a pool table, anyway? Use a heavy bass rod or a steelhead stick here and our flatties will give you all the fight you want. California ‘butts typically average about 10 pounds, but they can get into the high 30’s and, sometimes, the low 40’s.

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Small Trout Stream Techniques

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Now that trout season is here, it’s time for one of my favorite activities — fishing small creeks. Since I grew up on the Auburn Ravine’s North Fork, I’ve long been an affeciando of catching trout out of trickles. Most of the time little creeks give up…well…little trout, but size isn’t really what’s important here. There’s just something about hooking a vibrantly colored little native rainbow or brown or brookie out of a creek you could step across that’s good for one’s soul.

One of the most appealing aspects of fishing small streams is the inherent simplicity. No triple decker tackle boxes stocked with the latest in fish catching weaponry are needed. Just grab your rod and a handful of lures and you’re in business. Of course, you can load your box with a billion different lures if you so desire, but four basic baits will cover just about every small creek situation.

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Attack of the Killer Musky

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I rented the movie Lake Placid the other night. You know, the one about the giant crocodile that wreaks mayhem on the folks that live on a remote lake. It was actually pretty crappy, but it got me thinking. Water-based horror flicks have long been popular, right? Movies like The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Prophecy, Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, Anaconda. Those all had pretty cool antagonists, but I think it’s time for a killer fish to go nuts and tear up a town.

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Carp Petting Zoo Coming to Sacramento?

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In case you haven’t heard about what’s going on out a Folsom Lake, I’ll bring you up to speed.

It started very quietly back in the fall of 1991 . The lake was extremely low that year and all three boat ramps at Granite Bay were out of the water. A fisherman soaking worms for catfish one evening near Beal’s Point caught the ugliest fish he’d ever seen. The big brown beast (he described it as a “turd with fins”) had a few giant scales scattered along it’s leathery looking hide. It had small beady eyes and a couple wormish feelers on the outsides of its rubbery lips. The heavy fish was obviously a carp – and a sick one at that – so the angler did the only right thing to do which was punt it unceremoniously up onto the beach.

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