I'm Thinking About Taking Up A New Hobby

Yuki and I started early. We met at Starbucks in Valley Springs at 7:30. We got to South Shore Lake Camanche before 8:00. We had lines in the water at 8:09 exactly.

When we went through check-in the girl said they planted North Shore and South Shore ramps as well as the pond yesterday. We decided to fish the South Shore ramp since we hadn't fished there before.

As we sat, I took some pictures. What else was there to do? We sure weren't catching.

The lake from a different angle

See, rod in the water.

Nice Houseboat

Looks just like the one at North Shore.

That's North Shore way over there.

Fished about 2 1/2 hours without a nibble. Decided to hit the pond instead.

Nice Irises around the pond.

Nice Irises, but no fish. Guy across from us on the dock said he could see the school, but couldn't get them to bite. Yuki saw a couple big Carp cruising the shallows. Guy next to us caught a couple small Bluegills. We sat in the sun.

A guy walked by with three on a stringer. He caught them with Kastmasters. One with a pink Kastmaster. I used one. One with a Firetiger Kastmaster. I used one. One with a rainbow Kastmaster. I don't know what color that is. I thought the pink was a rainbow. I tried silver/green, Panther Martins (both gold and silver), and the Magic Bullet.

Yuki thinks I'm not focused because of the kitchen disaster. It is always on my mind especially since it should be completed this next week.

I'm going to quit fishing until the general season opens. Damn good thing it opens next Saturday. Look out Cat Creek if we can get down there. It snowed down to 4000 ft yesterday. We had a one day "gully washer" yesterday. Got more than an inch of rain at the house.

Stay tuned. 

Hey, What Happened To Mark?

Oh, I'm still here. Just haven't had a lot of time to go fishing. Trying to get the kitchen ready for the counter to be installed on the 25th.

I've also been working on this area in the front yard. When we moved into the new digs, we had this green monstrosity next to the drive way. It was made up of three (3) Junipers. I hate Junipers. I hate the smell, they stick you every time you touch them, just everything about them. So being the good guy I am, I ripped it out. 

Junipers

Took me a while, but Wednesday I completed this project. Trust me, this was not an easy project. I filled a minimum of 10 green (90 gallon) recycle containers and took three trips in my pickup to the dump. Then I still had the root balls to dig out. Each weighed about 40 pounds once I got them out. 

This is the result.

The little plants are Dipladenia Mandevilla. I could have gotten big ones at $30 a pop or these little ones at $8. They will get bigger. The ground cover is Redwood bark chips and with a drip system for watering.

Dipladenia Mandevilla

In between I've been painting the kitchen. The guys that destroyed the kitchen painted what they repaired, but when they met the already painted walls, the color was at least two shades off. That was the end of their painting.

Since the tile is gray, we decided to paint the walls gray to match with a lighter gray for the ceiling and in between gray for the cabinets. You can see some of the progress below.

The dishwasher goes in the hole.

The counter top guy was out on Friday to do the final measurements, but I wanted to make sure I had all the lower walls painted and ready for them to put in the counters on the 25th. Of course like all remodeling projects, it changes, but the lower walls are done, most of the upper (above the cabinets) is done and then there is still the dining room that is scheduled to be painted to match.

OK, I do have some time next week so I think I should be able to get out at least one day. Yuki and I are schedule to go on Friday, but he's having oral surgery on Wednesday so Friday is iffy. 

Stay tuned. 

OK, Pay Attention

Some of the things I write about are done so for humors sake. Let me give you an example. The post dated March 25th with the part about the orange X on the bridge. An omen right? I just threw that in because some idiot defaced a bridge that is part of the history of the area I live in. Not an omen and I'm not cursed although with the problems we've had since moving into this house one might think so. More humor, OK.

Let me give you another example, changing the name of this blog to Kiss My Crappie.com. All humor. This is Northern California Trout and will always be Northern California Trout even if I accidentally catch a Crappie (which I have) or a Bass (Smallmouth on a Panther Martin) while I'm fishing for trout at some lake. 

So to calm your fears let me say this, Bill I like trout fishing the best. Howard, I can't put anything alive in the fridge. Mike, sorry Buddy no Kiss My Crappie. Pat, it'll only be because Yuki has succumbed to the dark side and is trying to take me with him. Humor.

Most of you have known me for a lot of years, so if you read something out of the ordinary I've probably thrown it in for humors sake.

I did go feed the cats.   

Hell, It Was A Nice Drive

I've been wanting to take a drive up to Ice House Reservoir for a while. I like to fish this lake at ice out and since we've had a decent Winter I thought this was just about the right time.

I texted (see, I'm in the 21st century) Yuki and said I was going if he wanted to tag along.

We left the house a 8:10 and after two hours of driving arrived at Ice House Reservoir. 

Appears  we're a little late for ice out.

In fact, there wasn't any snow except for a dab here and a dab there.

Nope, no snow here either.

None over there.

So we parked at the dam and put out our rods. I put out two with PB and Yuki put out one with a crawler and one with PB.

Me taking a picture of Yuki taking a picture of the mountains.

Once again note that these first 4 pictures were taken with my smart phone and I'm now in the 21st century. My wife says the other phone was smart, it was the operator that was the problem.
 

Me

Then Yuki captured Moi doing what I do best. Sitting and waiting for the fish to bite. In between we threw Kastmasters and Thomas Bouyant lake lures.

Then we decided to go home. Once again the trout thumbed their collective noses at us.  

Hey look, snow.

Just a picture of the dam. 

We've decided to take up Bass fishing. I'll probably have to rename this blog. Let's see.

Kiss my Bass.com - Already taken.
Kiss my Bass.net - Belongs to my next door neighbor. His last name is Bass.
Kiss my Bass.fish - Already taken.

Then while I'm out on the Net looking at names, up pops Howard from Windknots with a Kiss My Bass Edition.  Crap or maybe Crappie.

Hey, Kiss My Crappie isn't taken. 

I'm going to go feed the cats now.