Lake Sonoma - skunk and bliss

I met up with Craig and Norm in Cloverdale Sunday morning for a charge into L. Sonoma for some of those fake "steelhead." 

To start out, I should qualify my freshwater fishing experience as almost jack, the null set, like none.  I started yaking as a faster way to get to dive sites, and living on the coast I've never really went east.

So here's how our conversations went:

"Hey Norm, what's that floating house over there."

"It's an outhouse"

"Dude, like they've got floating shitters?"

And more dumb crap like that.

I found myself oddly disoriented and couldn't figure out why.  So, I sorta made a mental list:  I wasn't worried about being eaten; I wasn't seasick; I wasn't freezing; I wasn't wearing 200 lbs of wetsuit junk; I wasn't worried about ornery, horny sealions; I wasn't worried about hitting the rocks; and I wasn't fretting about getting worked and losing my gear on the way in.  There, I had it:  I was comfortable.  This was an unfamiliar sensation for me as it pertains to kayak fishing.  When the sun came out I almost let down my backrest and took a nap.

So the report:  jack, the null set, like none (almost).  No fakey steelhead, but I managed to catch one tired bass, about 3 lbs (maybe, if you kind of squinted).  He came to the top, did one head shake, then posted the white flag and followed the worm to the boat.  I figure he's been C&R-ed so many times, he just knew the drill....why fight it?  I think Norm took a picture of the pathetic thing.

So the best part was hanging out with Norm and Craig in that beautiful reservoir.  Lot's of time for me to bug Norm with dumb questions.  Like, how come there's so much structure in that lake without the bass population going through the roof?  From the looks of it, you'd think it was a bass a cast.

Every time I go fishing with Norm, he outfishes me badly.  So I really wanted to rub in that I finally outfished him (1 physically challenged bass to 0), but that didn't work out.  It has come to pass that Norm is about to be the proud owner of a nice 17' Whaler, so I was in serious brown nose mode (sorry about outfishing you, Norm).

Anyway, a great day with good company at a cool spot...even if the catchin' part was a little slow.  I'd do it again.

Yes, it is a welcome change occasionally to paddle without all the worry....other than the 75 mph bass boats in the fog that is......

To say Sunday was slow is a true understatement.  From a bass fishing perspective, the conditions couldn't be much worse......post frontal, high clear skies and zero wind, but as Dave pointed out, he prevailed by taking the day's only fish.  Though our .33 fish per boat average was terribly low, it was still a great day up in the north end trees of Lake Sonoma.  The company was great and it was nice to finally meet and fish with Craig.  The good news is we will be hard pressed to do worse, number wise, on our next trip. 

We felt a little better after talking to several other folks who were there for multiple days without even a bite.  We only saw one boat catch a few, and that was a bass boat up in the Cherry Creek arm, near the end of our day.  They were following the edge of a creek channel in 35 to 50 feet with the guy on the bow drop shotting, almost vertically as they inched along the edge of the trees, what looked like a black spider jig with a pretty heavy weight and about 18 inches of space between the weight and bait, and the guy in the back was Carolina rigging some kind of small creature looking bait.  The guy on the bow caught a few and I saw the guy in the back get one.  Though the few we saw them catch were small, they were on some kind of a bite.......just FYI if you are heading up there soon.

Here is the picture of Dave's monster bass.......

Norm