Bullards Bar fish and Chill 5/12-5/14

Had a great time this weekend chilling with some of the best of the NCKA crew.  I left my house at 7:00 and arrived about 12:30 and after unhitching my mighty  tiny trailer drove back down to the water and launched with Bacon to see if we could score some fish.  It took a bit to find some willing kokes but finally was able to hookup my first fish.  I only used three setups all weekend because they were all hit easily.  Pink hoochie with a splatter uv pink 6" sling blade. And one of those small shrimp imitations Split Milt made popular with kokane uv pink dodger.  Later used a orange hoochie, that was it.  I must have lost a dozen fish this weekend, but it was so much fun hooking up so often I guess it didn't matter when I lost them.  Thanks for the great weekend and good company both off and on the water.  I was great therapy for me coming out of this dreadful winter.  Getting back into the game was a lot of fun. Hope we can do it again soon!

Had a great time this past weekend at the meet up although my stay was a little abbreviated.  Just wanted to thank Brian and his wonderful wife, Kevin and Ken for letting my hang out at their camp. I didn't get a chance to meet everyone as I left early but was happy to meet the folks that I did. I came a way with a hell of a sunburn but otherwise it was a great time. Thanks everyone!

Oh yeah, I got the sun burn too.  In only a few hours of fishing with shorts on Friday, paid a terrible price the rest of the day and night.  It felt so good to be in the sun again though.

Ditto to all the previous comments. The trip was awesome. It was a pleasure meeting John, Sam, Julian, Bree, Cory and Elana as well as fishing with Brian, Al, Matt, Joe, Ken and Adrian again. A big THANK YOU to Brian for setting this up! Count me in for the next one!

Kevin.

Ditto to all the previous comments. The trip was awesome. It was a pleasure meeting John, Sam, Julian, Bree, Cory and Elana as well as fishing with Brian, Al, Matt, Joe, Ken and Adrian again. A big THANK YOU to Brian for setting this up! Count me in for the next one!

Kevin.

Kevin, I need your smoked koke recipe!  all the details!

Sam and I had such a good time this weekend. It was great getting to spend some time with fellow NCKA folks. I feel like it has been far too long!

Sam and I were all loaded up Thursday and there was no rush to get going on Friday so we rolled out of Windsor around 730. We took the scenic route and made a few stops along the way.

Around 10am as we were approaching Marysville/Yuba city we get a text from Corey who had already arrived. In essence it said “BUG SPRAY!!” Thank goodness for that warning. We hit the drug store and loaded up on bug spray. The mosquitos were thick but manageable with the spray.

We rolled in to camp a little before noon. I’ve never been to the campground before and didn’t realize it was all on a hill! Our campsite was at the bottom of the hill. Several hundred yards down a steep ass hill. Ugh.

The cool thing was just below camp was the water with a nice beach area to haul out the kayaks and have a nice fire.

I fished a little on Friday before dinner. Middle of the day but still caught a few. I got some pointers from Sam and I think I went 2 for 5, keeping one. Sam kept a few as well. She was clearly out fishing me and lost no fish.

Her secret was a short downrigger set back (25 feet) and reel like crazy. Get the fish to the boat as fast as possible and give them no chance to escape.

Saturday rolled around and we had the little money between friends tourney. I tied up a Trinidad tackle p-Tex spoon in pink with black dots 18 inches behind a 5.5 inch sling blade dodger in UV with pink herring bone.

I set my gear back 25 feet and fished between 35-50 feet. My set up was running the spoon about an inch ahead of the tandem hooks with a single piece of pink corn on the trailing hook. The spoon was basically a mini dodger for the hooks and corn. I topped it all with some pro cure Kokanee special oil.

The first fish was landed within 15 minutes. I went 10 for 10 over the next 2.5 hrs with a bathroom break on the floating island (10 out of 10, would use again lol)

Those 10 barely edged out Corey and his 10.

I then grabbed the bass gear and started looking for biggest other fish. I tried a bunch of gear and settled on a 1/8 oz ball head with a 2.8 keitech. I waded thru a bunch of 12 inch bass to land 1 that was 14.75. Just big enough to take biggest other fish category.

Later in the day we did some swimming and self rescue practice. Then the awesome potluck and lakeside fire where Julian and Brie cooked dessert in a Dutch oven with the coals.

Overall just a great weekend and a lot of fun with everyone.

Pictures to follow.

Pics

My lumpy tarpon 140 is strapped to the top of my wife's prius and ready to go.

See y'all bright and early! Hoping to get to the ramp around 6:30 or 7:00am.

I packed optimistically and brought some glide baits so I can catch a new record spot after I limit on kokanee 

You gotta post the picture of that monster bass you caught on the glide bait!!

I'll sound off here too and echo the rest--what a phenomenal weekend. It was great to meet all of those whom I had not met yet! (Ken, Kevin, Matt)

Fishing was great--not wide open for me, but consistent enough to keep it fun and engaging.

We saw so much wildlife--Osprey, bald eagles, and even an extremely endangered California Condor (pic for proof!)

We were reluctant to use the big metal bear box on account of it being 140 degrees inside and guaranteed to nuke our cooler. I've spent many months in bear country and have had few encounters in developed campgrounds. I figured we'd be ok until bedtime, so we thought.

After beach fire and peach cobbler on Saturday night, Brie and I returned to the campsite to find our cooler missing. Brie asked if I moved it, I said no, and looked to my left down the embankment next to our site. Oh shit.

Our stuff was strewn everywhere, and the cooler itself was flipped over. Upon further investigation, most of the food was in tact and usable. The only thinks missing--a block of cheese, and a bag with 14 kokanee in it. We cleaned up, kicking ourselves for not using the bear box, and possibly harming the bear by habituating it to human food, and possible plastic ingestion.

Of course, before bed, we locked every smellable thing we had, and what remained of our food, into the bear box.

I was awoken at first light to the sound of something sliding accross the campsite, and knew immediately who the visitor was. "HEY BEAR!" I yelled. The response was the quintessential grunt and growl of a black bear. I grabbed my stainless water bottle and clanked it aggressively. We heard some branches crack and brush rustle, and the bear was gone. We got out of the tent then, to find the camp box, which contains no smellable items, to be slid almost over the same embankment that we found our cooler downthe night before.

We told Corey the story, and, like the stand up gent that he is, gave us his bag of fish to take home. It would save him the trouble of processing, and we all know that Corey's freezers are already full anyway  Thank you Corey.

Lesson learned for sure. The cooler has some sweet bite marks in it now, and will remind us of this story and this trip.

Anyway, thank you Brian and all for the great weekend.

We were reluctant to use the big metal bear box on account of it being 140 degrees inside and guaranteed to nuke our cooler. I've spent many months in bear country and have had few encounters in developed campgrounds. I figured we'd be ok until bedtime, so we thought.

After beach fire and peach cobbler on Saturday night, Brie and I returned to the campsite to find our cooler missing. Brie asked if I moved it, I said no, and looked to my left down the embankment next to our site. Oh shit.

forgot to mention it, Saturday afternoon ~4, I go back to the trailer, and the cooler is halfway up the hill, opened, stuff dragged out...oops, I guess there are bears.  I put everything back, tell Elena later...nah, must be raccoons, I said no, it dragged the cooler UP the hill.  Didn't get anything, that morning I moved the cokes from the cooler to the fridge.  That area just didn't feel very Beary to me...I was wrong....read the signs brian, read the signs 'bear country'

Hum... Well I sure am re-thinking what I heard near me (in the dark) late night on Saturday.   

Wow, I didn’t know about the bears. I put my coolers in the metal boxes but they had no latches so we’re useless. Corey left his cooler out and we had no issues. With the exception of my Thursday evening skunk, it was a great weekend with great company and pretty good fishing. I finally got my BB limit of 10 on Friday plus a couple small bass. Saturday I had my hottest streak of 3 in 30 minutes but that didn’t last.
Mabel had a great time as well.
Thanks for organizing this Brian.
I see that Stampede is open and beckoning with larger Kokes and cooler temps. (And no sleeping on the ground required.)

My turn...

Great weekend! It was very nice meeting a few new people who i've 'known' only by NCKA handles for a while. Fishing was solid on kokes, company and food even better. I didn't have any run-ins with a bear, but I can say some of the Yuba City party animals are far more abominable!

Looking forward to making this an annual event! Thanks for organizing it, Brian!

Until next time!

Smoked up some kokes last night, and also this morning.

last night:
1. filleted
2. 50/50 Salt/Brown Sugar
3. 2 hours on dry rub
4. rinse and dry
5. smoked on Traeger ~1 hour on Smoke setting (Old Traeger), Temp from 140-180*

Delicious, Elena loved them, we enjoyed on crackers with cream cheese

Overnight (this morning):
1. split in half and removed spine along with any bones that joined in
2. 1-3 salt/Brown shugar
3. overnight in fridge
4. rinse and dry
5. on drying rack in fridge for 1+ hours
6. smoked on Traeger ~1 hour on Smoke setting (Old Traeger), Temp from 140-180*

enjoyed on cracker with sour cream this morning.  Also delicious, less salty - the salt helped on the cracker/cream cheese.  This has a milder flavor

I'd forgotten how much I love to eat Kokes

Looks Delish Brian. Gave all my Kokes to Adrian so no smoking for me. Looks like that means a day trip up to Stampede in a week or two. It's open and the fishing is good.