Lake Billy Chinook 1-26/28-05

I finally got my uncle Dick Arnold out with me for the first time this year. He is the one responsible for starting the development of my love affair with fishing. I will always remember our trek to 5th Street Park in downtown San Bernardino back in the early 50's where I caught my first bluegill and this whole thing started. I am forever grateful for the time he took to introduce me to the sport of fishing. We had many wonderful trips to some of the local bass haunts and rainbow trout fisheries of the greater San Bernardino/Riverside area when I was a kid. Then a little later he took me backpacking in the Eastern High Sierra's for brook trout, rainbows and goldens. I have some wonderful memories I will never forget.

Two days after the full moon is not one of my favorite times to fish, but you take your fishing trips when you can. We actually did a little better than I thought we might. Again we were fishing right out from the ramp at Cove Palisades. The weather report was for rain showers through the day and we did get a few. It was a small window of a bite that came from 10:45 a.m. until about an hour later. The biggest bull is the one pictured with Dick holding it on my Rapala gripper/scale. It weighed right at 8 Lb. and is his biggest to date. Most of the fish were coming on some custom painted Bomber lures, A/C's and flatfish. We were basically working what we were seeing on the graph....bulls suspended under kokanee at depths of 70 to 120 feet. We did do a little shallow water drill as well in the Deschutes arm ripping an Excalibur minnow on the tight side and Kelly was working a Lyman on the deeper side. We ended up with a 4 lb. bull and two dinks on that run. The bite slowed considerably in the afternoon and we had one late strike after 3:00 p.m. Not too bad of a day, all things considered.

Fri. morning I woke up with the start of a cold. The bad news is that I just got over an upper respiratory infection two weeks ago. How lucky can I be! Anyway, my buddy Tom Staley and his daughter Lietecia both had the day off from school because of a teachers work day, so off we went.

We got there around 9:00 and started right off the ramp....same drill we have been doing for most of the winter so far. After a few hours of working the deeper water fish with only a couple of strikes to show for it, we decided to move in and work a stretch of water I like up in the Crooked arm toward the dam. We were rip-jigging an Excalibur minnow on the inside and working a Super Shad Rap on the outside. After missing one fish, I finally hooked up on a nice 3.5 Lb. bull that Lietecia had fun playing and then releasing. It was a much slower day over all and we only landed 4 trout for the day. The best fish came while working the riggers a little shallower with lures set at 40 and 60 feet working a shelf that rolled off to 100 feet. Both rods throbbed rhythmically (we stacked that side) when the fish hooked up. I guessed at the top rod and pulled it and popped the release and set the hook. I guessed right as I felt the fish doing some nice big head shakes. It had slammed a new 3 hook model A/C Skinny that Allan had sent me recently. I handed off the rod to Lietecia and she had her hands full with a nice 28 in. 7 lb. bull that they decided should go into there smoker. That is the first bull that I have kept since a 15 lb. fish that I mounted last March. Look for another report this upcoming week as I will be back out on Thurs. or Fri.

Tight Lines, Rick