Catching Comes To A Screaching Halt

My wife was home with the "bug" today so I decided to head out (actually I had already decided before she got the bug) to Lake Camanche.

Since I'd been doing so well at New Melones I figured I give somebody else a try (My editor keeps yelling "Fish Amador County not Calaveras County". So I do and get skunked.). At check-in the guy said they planted 1200 lbs yesterday and fishing should be good today or tomorrow. Where have we heard that before?

I got out there at around 10:30 which is late for me, but since the wife was sick, we slept in. I set up the red camping chair and one rod with rainbow Power Bait and a couple of dabs of Pro-Cure garlic scent.

On my little Okuma I put the rainbow pink Kastmaster that works so well out there and walked in the direction of a couple of guys fishing a point about 100 yards to my left. 

There hasn't been any reports from the shore guys at Camanche for some time so I thought I'd walk around and see if anyone was catching anything. The guys on the point had one and that was all that had been caught. There was one other guy there, but he was fishless. 

On the way to the point, I threw out the Kastmaster and on the third cast, hooked up what I figured was a small one. Didn't fight much and after a few seconds, was gone. A couple of casts later, the one I hooked at that time was much bigger. The fight only lasted, maybe five seconds, but the time was spent with the fish stripping line off my reel. My guess was lightly lip hooked and like the first one, gone. 

The rest of the time was spent casting various colors of Kastmaster all around the point I was fishing on and soaking rainbow Power Bait with garlic, anise, and sweet corn scents, but no body wanted anything. I fished 50 feet out, 100 feet out, and as far as I could cast to no avail. 

The level of the lake is up and the spot I usually fish (that was across the sunken road the last time) is completely under water now.

So a skunk today, but I really would have liked to know what that big one looked like.

Oh, I did take my fly rod out and tried a Thin Mint, but couldn't get it out very far because of the layout of the terrain. The water was really shallow out about 15 feet and then drops off to a couple of feet for another 15 feet or so and any fish that would be out there would have been out a lot farther.  About 40 feet is about as far as I can sling a fly and since it's been a while since I fished with the fly rod, I was way out of practice.

Since we got back from LA (my brothers memorial) Sunday the weather has been between the low
20's at night and the mid 30's during the day. The ground around the house is frozen and when it does ice crystals form. It's an odd phenomenon and I don't know if it occurs in other places, but I took a picture so you could see. Most of the ground around the house is like this.  

Frozen ground

I might also add that the last time it snowed was somewhere around two weeks ago and there is still a good chunk of snow on the ground. The picture below is at the entrance to our property. The "keep out" signs are for, well that's another story.

Property line

A couple of days ago, I placed an order at Cabela's for a pair of stocking foot hip waders. I want them for the creeks next summer so I don't have to fight with chest waders in the heat and I want to try them at New Melones so I can wade out a few feet and chuck a Thin Mint out to see if the trout there are more interested than the ones at Camanche. They are not due until next week, so I'll try them then.

That's it for today.

Mark