I'll be back to trout in a couple weeks when the rivers drop a little more...

Spent the morning of Memorial Day at a nearby mixed-species hike-in lake. Although trout are present, my main purpose was to practice the bass skills I learned with my friend Kirk a couple weeks ago. With the float tube on my back, I made the mile-and-a-half trek to the lake and got on the water with the early morning sun not far above the horizon. I started dragging a drop shot worm down the 20 ft deep channel in the middle of the lake, a method that found a lot of rainbows last year. I picked one up fairly quickly, and after the rainbow warm up began tossing worms towards the shore. Sometimes on a shaky head rig, sometimes a drop shot. Not too long into the morning, casting to the point across from the launch, I hooked a monstrous bass on the shaky head. Fought it for about 30 seconds before it jumped clean out of the water and threw the hook. Easily over 20 inches. Found nothing else on that side except little bass and bluegill nibbling at the worm, so I moved to the inlet by the launch and quickly found this beautiful largemouth blind casting to the shore with the shaky head.

At the end of the inlet, I found several large bass cruising, saw one head into the deeper water near me so I quickly switched to the drop shot, tossed about where I though the fish would be, and was immediately rewarded with another slightly smaller, but still very nice bass. 

Fished back down the inlet without any more action, so I decided to call it a day. I'd proved to myself that I can find bass on my own. The next time fishing will be back to trout on my favorite local stream, which will soon be low enough to fish effectively...

Heavenly Fish in a Heavenly Place

After Rick's recent post about Heathen Fish I felt I had no alternative other than to arrange for fishing in a heavenly place.  With vaccinations received, we wanted to celebrate the fact that son Brian and his wife Amaya graduated from Brigham Young University in Provo last month.  So we booked a trip to lovely Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where we have traveled previously.  At what a more Merrill way to celebrate than to go fishing!

To make this possible we persuaded the women that beaches and sunshine were the objective, but followers of this blog will immediately recognize that was simply a ruse to permit us to spend some time with lines in the water.

We first disguised our intentions by scheduling a snorkel trip to Los Arcos with Fernando at La Vida Bella Private Boat Tours ( https://lavidabellaprivateboattours.com ) We'd gone with him a couple years ago with grandchildren. We had a great snorkel trip and we arranged a subsequent day for fishing with him.  

We met him before 7:00am and put out our lines as soon as we exited the marina.  Within minutes (and within sight of our rooms at Club Regina) Brian started the day by hooking and landing the first two fish--a double--on a squid fly and Rapala.  I phoned Mary so she could go to the room balcony and see us wave to her.  Off to a good start!

Brian with two fish within first five minutes

Brian noted that these fish pull really hard for their size.  He also noted that they all have lots of SHARP teeth.  Very much an "eat or be eaten" world here.  Nobody seems to believe the statement from Nemo that "Fish are friends, not food."

Rob playing catch up

Less than five minutes later I managed to even up the number of rods that had caught fish, but Brian still had me on total fish count.  We also brought in our second unique species of the day.  Things were boding well for a successful morning on the water.

Brian with mexican bonita

Brian responded by getting a Mexican bonita, then quickly followed with a California variety.  Note the different striping patterns--vertical vs. longitudinal--and different dorsal fin shapes. California bonita also have longer teeth and a slightly different shape to their mouth.  These relatives of the tuna family fight hard and according our guides are firm and tasty.  We ended up landing six different species of fish with Fernando.

California bonita

We enjoyed steady action throughout the morning, bringing various toothy critters to the boat where some went into the box and others were returned to the sea.  Even got a strange looking fish the guide called a "caballo" or horse-fish.  Shortly after I returned it to the water Brian had a HUGE strike on his rod that bent it nearly double and as fast as the fight started, it was over leaving nothing but a severed line.  The fish had completely engulfed the 5-6" Rapala with two sets of treble hooks and cut the line above it with his teeth.  The guide seemed to be more impressed with the size and power of this fish than concerned about the loss of a big lure.  Wish we had gotten that one into the boat!

Yet another type for Brian

Brian found another fish and we were happy to be able to keep a few so the guides could also take home some fish for their families.  They filleted our catch, topped the fillets in the bag with ice and we asked where the best place in the marina could be found to cook our catch and without hesitation Fernando recommended Victor's Place Cafe Tacuba along the waterfront in Marina Vallarta.

We took our filets to Victor's Place Cafe Tacuba that evening and they prepared us breaded, beer-battered, and butter/garlic fish, garnished with grapefruit slices.  Served with chips and salsa, steamed veggies, rice, mashed potatoes and garlic toast.  Their fish preparations were delicious--by far the best I've had in many years of taking the day's catch to a restaurant to have them cook it for our dinner.  Our total came to 600 pesos for the five of us.  Great food, great price, and incredible service.  We will come back to Victor's any time we catch fish here in Puerto Vallarta.

If you're in Puerto Vallarta and want to fish, snorkel, or just take a nice tour, we highly recommend Fernando and his La Vida Bella Private Boat Tours.  Great people and great trip.

Heathen Fish with Heathen Gear...

Got a call from Kirk Morris, a past guest on the blog. Kirk is a good friend to have. He has a nice boat. He fishes a lot with his wife and kids. And when they are out of town, he sometimes calls friends and invites them to join him. So it was that I got a call inviting me to join him on a trip to the nearby Potholes Reservoir to chase smallmouth and largemouth bass. A great chance to learn a little more about warm water fishing, as he has spent a lot of time recently figuring it out and is a great instructor. 

I picked up an early morning #6 at McDs on the way to his house hoping its magic works for non-trout species. It does.

We were joined by another friend, Lance Rhoten, who is a dentist like Kirk. On the drive up they spent plenty of time talking about crowns and cleanings and other dental procedures, as well as various bass baits and rigs. Both are foreign languages to me. But the shout and whoop with each fish hooked and landed is a common language we all spoke, and there was plenty of shouting and whooping today.

We started out fishing above rockpiles near the face of the dam where smallmouth hang out. A dropshot with a rubber worm bait of some kind was the ticket. The smallies ranged from the typical under a pound to a couple nice ones about a pound and a half. 

A nice smallmouth to start the day

After getting the rust off our casting and setting skills, we headed uplake to the dunes, where the lake becomes a series of bays and channels as it wraps around the sand dunes that were present before the lake covered the dunes with water. The banks are largely clumps of short willows, mostly underwater now, but well away from the waterline later in the year as the water level in the reservoir drops. The willows provide an unending source of cover for the largemouth bass, which had recently completed their spring spawn.

My description of this fishing, besides FUN, was that in a way it was like flats fishing, cruising the shoreline of the inlets and bays, blind casting to the cover, carefully watching for bass to target. Once a fish was spotted, we would sight fish to them. Most of the largemouth were caught sight fishing, mostly on the dropshot rig. 

Note the willows in the background; the fish were mostly found in the open spaces between the willows

While the largemouth would often show interest in other baits tossed their way, they would usually leave them alone until a dropshot was tossed in front of them. Then the rubber worm would quickly disappear and the fight was on. Kirk was a champion of this technique, and rarely was there a bass that he didn't successfully entice in this way. 

Kirk with the largest of the day, just over three pounds I think

Lance and I both got in on the action too, and we ended the day with around a couple dozen largemouth to hand, most in the range of one and a half to two pounds. Together our five largest totaled somewhere around 11 pounds (Kirk has the best fishing toys, including a digital scale that tracks the weights). 

A nice largemouth, a little under two pounds

The most memorable fish of the day was at the end of an inlet where we spotted two nice largemouth cruising back and forth between small openings in the willows. A couple small willow branches blocked any cast into the only open water we could hope to reach, so I put the small-stream pendulum cast to work and swung the weight over the top of the branches and dropped the rubber bait into the open water behind. I shook the rubber worm to try to draw the attention of the fish, and we all watched as the larger of the two bass swam into the opening and slowly approached the bait. It had it nose right under the worm, then backed off. Some more shaking got its attention again and we watched in anticipation as it approached again, literally nosed the worm, then backed off and swam into the adjacent opening. More shaking, and the big guy (or gal) returned for the third time to our opening. I let the worm sit completely still this time, and the bass again nosed up to the bait. Then with no apparent movement of the fish, the worm disappeared as it was sucked into the fish's mouth. With a set and a shout, the water exploded as the bass in the range of two pounds started dancing around the small opening. It immediately dove into the adjacent willows, leaving my hook in a branch rather than his mouth. Disappointment at the loss, but getting that take was a lot of fun!

We stopped to pick up a few more smallmouth on our way back to end a great day of fishing. There really is no such thing as heathen fish or heathen gear. Catching fish of any kind with gear of any kind makes any day a great day! Thanks Kirk!