Re: Kelsey Bass Ranch June 1,2013, Great as Usual....

The wind died down for Saturday and the fish were on the chew ALL DAY LONG!  Morning bite was in the shallows, and later, they were suspended about 30 feet off shore a few feet off the bottom.  Once that was established, the game was on! 
I had a great afternoon talking to the vets and their families.  John Kelsey invited us to spend a second night and a couple of the vets took them up on it I think. (I had to leave Saturday evening.) 

There was even a cattle drive!  ha!  I had a great time chopping veggies, cooking hot dogs, even helping to pack up the camp.  Everyone was in high spirits and with servant's hearts all weekend long.  What a great group we have with NCKA! 
Cheers! 

It was really hot down there for sure. Everyone stepped up and kicked ass anyways. Much thanks to everyone who showed up and made it happen. cashmanben,yester,skipro,Bird,Hojoman,rancidrob,that old hawaiin looking dude(novofish?),raydon,danglin,mudshark.You guys are truly awesome people. Thank you.

Stoked to hear things went well and a good time was had by all.  To all making this happen...You Guys Rock.  Hope to help out on the next one.  Loved the comment by skipro3... "fish were on the chew"

It was a good time.  Wish we had more to serve though. The fish were  on the chew for sure. BMB gave me a hard time about the 10-15 top water fish  I missed. Ended up with 39 fish over 16" up to 20". Several 20" 4+ fish to be had. One big one still should have a frog in its mouth for a while unfortunately. Dark frogging is cool. 

Thank you all.  You guys are awesome!

What an awesome 1st HOW event for me!
My hat is off to all who showed or support the effort!
The Vets and their families that made it out were great, and really had fun!
Danglin, you have the HOW event process down bro, GREAT JOB!
Great chow as well, as per NCKA style.
Fishing was good, swimming was better for me.
Thanks to the Vets and familes, and everyone else for putting up with me!
bunch of pics:

more pics

one more

i had a lot of fun too.  i almost exclusively fished a frog all weekend and landed more fish on the frog than i have pretty much my entire life.  I think Rob was getting a little annoyed by how many fish i landed on that frog.  i had one of the best hookup ratios i've ever had on the frog, probably near 50% after all was counted.

I think i got a total of around 45 fish from fri night - sunday morning, with all but 10 on top water.  that lake is so fun to fish topwater.

unfortunately not too many vets showed up, the heat probably kept them home, it was smoking hot on saturday afternoon (and yesterday for that matter). 

Nice fatties guys and good numbers! Impressive, especially top water. Glad to see y'all had fun. Sorry I missed it but it is a 3 day drive from my place in Texas now.

Morning bite was good and l would loose them near submerged trees.  I started catching fish sitting under vegetation the rest of the nice hot day was punch fishing.  All in all 2 fish on senko, one on frog, three loss on a walk the dog bait, 6 on punching and about a dozen or more loss to punching.

Thanks for everything from those that made it.  Did someone make use of my sleeping bag?

Big thanks to Don, incredible amount of work getting these events organized and run - well done again.

Thanks to the NCKA crew, a real pleasure to volunteer with these guys, and to hangout and fish too.  Always impressed with the effort guys.  Only a few vets this time and they all seemed to enjoy the day. 

I arrived late Friday.  Fished Sat early for a few hours and then Sat afternoon for 3 hours or so.  First time there so decided to cruise the whole lake and check it out.  Great place to practice all the techniques for bass, tons of 2-4 lb bass.  Cool old ranch too.  Even had a cattle drive on Sat.  Beaver lodge on the lake, which you don't see many of in California. Headed home Saturday evening.   

Glad someone got a picture of that sunset Saturday...  Awesome!!!

And so are all of you! Awesome that is...  to come out and do what ya do to make this happen...

Daleshark saved the day with plenty of hydration supplies which were very needed, awesome spread by Kayakjack and the list goes on to everyone that makes this a reality. Pretty much went so smoothly, it was all automatic at the event, except for some intense babysitting details that came in the early afternoon... Thanks for the assist Tony...I did not have much more left in the tank to keep up those 3 girls...

  We only had 3 vets and their families .... There was a miss communication with the Warrior Transition Unit (WTU) in that a e-mail sent out last month to everyone from their headquarters, never went out and did not go out till 5 days before the event... we had several that wanted to come, but had other plans. Good news,

 We have a good number of local WTU guys that want to go fishing...   

I was trying to get the Pathway Home guys, but their admin thought it was too close to their graduation, too far and backed out at the last moment.  The great thing about that was the guys were texting and e-mailing me about going while I was driving to Kelsey.. I told them go " AWAL " and get their butts up here!  Sounds like they almost did, but admin kept them from going...

guess we showed the admin at Pathways these guys want to go fishing... 

The VA is the VA...   but after several phone calls and emails,  they got 2 young guys out there with their girlfriends and they had a great time...  We officially had our first camp over event with one vet staying overnight with his girlfriend and hitting the water on his own in the morning ....

The best sight for me was watching the two vets on the shore after going out on the yaks Saturday afternoon...  just taking in the sunset talking to each other after doing some great bass fishing on the a very fishy bass pond....

So tired I just Flopped after wards..., came home last night.... 

Ben....   

  Thanks for the Frog!!!   

  Had an awesome time just hanging with the top water for a day.....   

gotta run and will post some pics when I can....

  Thanks to  everyone for making Nor Cal HOW a success!!!

Probably taking a few months off with vacations and heat,  stay tuned as we might do something spontaneous at Berryessa or lake Hennessy...

For a while, after I arrived on Thursday at mid-afternoon, the thought crossed my mind that I would be by my lonesome that evening, but the drag racer, his dad Dennis, and buddy Mike eventually appeared.

Jerry (Skipro) arrived before dark. Didn't take long before the kayaks were launched or someone was casting from the dock.