Mendo Wednesday Evening, 5-9

Launched from the South ramp at about 4:00 yesterday afternoon and paddled over to the East side of the lake. I dropped my minnows near the buoy outside of Crappie Cove and let the wind do all the work for me. Worked the cove for 1.5 hours or so then paddled back out and followed a very large group of cormorants around for awhile for nothing. Kept going down the SE shoreline for a bit then turned around and slow trolled back towards CC to try and get out of the wind a little. It was a little calmer in there so I was able to drift a little slower. Made a pass down the south shore of CC and up and around to the north shore, then just started zig zagging around the cove. Finally around 6:45 I hear the beautiful sound of line peeling off my Corvalus and look back to see my Seeker bent in half. By the time I got my pole out of the holder the fish had spun my kayak around and tangled in my other line. No problem...I kept my cool and placed the Seeker back into the pole holder and slowly reeled in my other line, keeping the minnow just under the surface. Grabbed the other pole and got pulled all over the place by what turned out to be a chunky 23" striper! I couldn't believe it...I thought I had a HOG! Oh well, I snapped a pic, thanked the striper for a great battle, and sent it on its way. Got everything straightened up on deck and dropped the other minnow back down. As it was on its descent my line got slack for a moment then started dropping again at a weird angle. I clicked the bail over and gave a good swing and connected with the 18" LM pictured. Not much of a fight and I was almost offended that it sucked up my second to last minnow...lol. Oh well, more points for the AOTY!

Anyway, I cruised the cove for a bit longer then headed for the ramp. As I was paddling against the wind I noticed a good sized boil going off just north of the boat ramp, but it died down long before I could reach it. Must've been some big fish in there because I clearly saw it even with all the whitecaps on the water.

A great evening on the water even though I only got two fish. The weather was very nice despite the wind. I saw the pair of bald eagles and even saw a sturgeon rolling on the surface. However when I paddled up to it, it turned out to be a HUGE carp...lol.

Well that beats a blow to the head.  Good fishing

Jim