Amador 10/29

Just getting my coffee and heading out the door to Lake Amador, if anyone gets the urge to get out da house, look for the fat guy on the camo Ride, if I can figure out the radio (that came last night) that might be on too! 

Did you make it out to Amador? If you did, how did you do?

Mark, Monday off?  How'd you do?  That place can be heaven or hell.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

OK, well I spent 20minutes writing up a report at home, hit SEND, and the forum site glugged, deleted the whole post/all the attachments and put me back to a blank page,, so this time, I will save it before posting, but here I go..

Yeah, I had a few days off, I had originally planned to fish Yakhoppers event Sunday with my cousin, then take him to the Port Monday, then hunt Wednesday, but life gave him a call, and the ducks never made it to the marsh, so I had a few free days and decided to fish them. I ended up fishing Turner Cut Sunday, did honey-do’s Monday, fished Amador Tuesday and the Port Wednesday (see other post!)

So Amador..

I ended up deciding to drive up there only after seeing my kids off to school, so I wasn’t in a big hurry, I drove what turned out to be the scenic route (see photo) through the backside of Sacramento and on through Ione. It was a nice enough drive, but with the meandering paths of the back roads, I had a few too many “WTF-am-I?” moments (where I had to stop and check maps,) so I went home Liberty Road/99 (and I recommend the Liberty Road/99 path to anyone traveling up to the Nov event.)

I had never been to Amador, but I knew from reading ahead that Amador was a pay-to-play venue, but I still choked a little bit on the $21 day use/kayak launch fee.

I wasn’t until I had backed my truck down a 15 mile boat ramp and into a muddy crevice in the side of a narrow channel into the lake (see photo,) and started to unload my kayak that I realized that I had left my two the two reels that I had carefully re-spooled with 6lb floro, on the counter back at home >.< I also happened to notice that, while I had brought some lures to drag along, I didn’t bring any split shots…..

This is also when I was introduced to pure evil with scales.

Well, by this time I was already half in the water, so, what the hell right? I figure I could walk to the shop and buy more gear, but the chuckleheads at the bait shop already had enough of my money, and I WAS on the water (=winning) so I could adapt, improvise and overcome just fine? A couple bloodknots later, I had enough end-of-spools of floro left to tie what amounted to enormous leaders onto my 12lb test, on one reel, and 50lb spiderwire on the other **sigh** now all I needed was lead! And really, where better to harvest your own lead than a lake that was low on water? So I figured I just needed to start paddling..

This is when I had my first brush with evil. As I was walking, in the water, around my kayak, I was splashed by a group of three 1-2lb trout that were cavorting in the shallow water of the launch. I was only narrowly averted from getting my jumper cables out and rigging a shock-device by optimism  (that this was a good sign that there were fish in the lake,,,) and by another boater waiting to get down the ramp, (ie. witnesses..)

As I pushed back from the ramp and started floating out into the mud canal, I had another one of these silver meat footballs leap entirely out of the water about 8 feet away from me, at the time I naively thought it was a good sign.

So I proceeded on the great lead harvest, which was kinda fun in an redneck sort of way as it was, I managed to find a half-dozen steel flasher-leader thingies, a handful of heavy catfish lead rigs, a pair of trout lures, a couple of gi-normous bass lures that were so large they could have doubled as marital aids, and even a few beaded swivels, before I found enough split shots to rig my lures, success!!

So I rigged up my lures, set the poles up trawler-style, and I started paddling,, and paddling,,, and paddling…

I spent a few hours trying this type of trolling without even getting a hint of a bite. I saw a ton of fish, I mean besides all the fish on the fishfinder holding at 40-50’, no exaggeration, I saw, at least 200 fish break the water as I fished (from 10am-5pm) and fully a third of those were full-body-out-of-the-water leaps. Hell one fish did such a leap that it flapped up onto a dock (where a fisherman quickly put it on his stringer.. Now I am not saying that is an approved method-of-take, but at $21/day, I understand.) One of these evil meat footballs came very close to making me soil my waders, as I was paddling across the mid-point of the lake, and it jumped, fully out of the water, about 18” behind me…

So I am convinced that Amador is inhabited by an evil species of Robo-trout that, being evil, delight in flying by your melon in aerial displays, and being robo, don’t actually eat anything..

I figured out that the only fish being caught (maybe 8 among 20 anglers?) were being caught near the dam, so I spent the bulk of my time near the damn, I threw lures at boils, I floated power eggs (on the bottom and on bobbers) I trolled grubs with flashers and without,,, It seemed like the only people who were catching any fish were using green power bait on a bobber.. One guy was trolling a really elaborate flasher rig and a spoon from a small boat and managed to catch a pair of nice fish. Yeah did I mention that my Power Bait was with the split shots and reels?

The lady at the shop said that the lake hadn’t fully turned over, so the fish weren’t really on the bite yet, I really hope that the lake turns before the event, because if even a fraction of those fish I saw (nothing under a pound and a half, most seemed 2lb+) are biting, that place could be epic..

I would suggest that when you come up, bring the trolling gear that was suggested (6lb floro, white grubs, white power egg heads, split shots) plus a rod dedicated solely to casting lures (I am grabbing some Kastmasters) plus a rig to bobber fish the top 2-3’ with power bait, plus maybe some random trolling flasher/lure rig just to cover all the bases..

I ended up calling it quits at 5pm, and was treated to a nice show of deer, quail and wild turkeys on the way home. I got a lot of exercise, got to fish a spot I never fished before, got some nice wildlife viewing, and am looking forward to going back, so overall it was a good day. I am looking forward to Nov 10th!!

Thanks for teh report.  DAMN, I havent seen it that low before!!!

super secret fish catching info for that lake:  those fish are lazy eaters, like lazy lazy.  what I have found to work best are small jigs under a float, pins minnows, J5 firetiger rapalas, weightless white grubs.  everything trolled needs to be like .3 to .6 mph and near the surface, preferably within 10 feet or less of the bank.

try a pearl gulp fluke below a bobber, its almost always the ticket.  but this lake is a waiting game lake, if you are too fast, you will spend all your time paddling past the fish and very little of it catching fish

See you in 10 days

Jim

Thanks for teh report.  DAMN, I havent seen it that low before!!!

super secret fish catching info for that lake:  those fish are lazy eaters, like lazy lazy.  what I have found to work best are small jigs under a float, pins minnows, J5 firetiger rapalas, weightless white grubs.  everything trolled needs to be like .3 to .6 mph and near the surface, preferably within 10 feet or less of the bank.

try a pearl gulp fluke below a bobber, its almost always the ticket.  but this lake is a waiting game lake, if you are too fast, you will spend all your time paddling past the fish and very little of it catching fish

See you in 10 days

Jim

You goin pre-fishing sat?

You goin pre-fishing sat?

Yes, I plan on being there early, I have to leave by noon.

Sssslllllloooooooowwwwwwwwwww your roll in that lake. Fish ON the surface. Nothing below two feet. Enough hints before tourney day.

but this lake is a waiting game lake, if you are too fast, you will spend all your time paddling past the fish and very little of it catching fish

That was COMPLETELY me... Thank you very much for the tips! (don't worry Rob, judging by my last attempt there, I'm only going for the "Attendance" award <LOL>) Sounds like I need to bring more cigars next time, they slow my rate of just about everything

Wiggle tail on an intermediate line slays those over priced trout.  Use to go there a lot, but once the price kept going up I gave up on that place.  My fly club goes every now and then, but I am just too cheap.  Especially since I don't eat trout.

If you want big trout, head to Lake Davis NOW!!!  The fish are in the shallows and they are hungry.