fall trip to Nor Cal

[Freespool]

I went up north for a friend's bachelor party weekend and not having been there in awhile, I decided to take a few vacation days, bring the kayak along, and visit some of my old haunts. I grew up in Nor Cal but have only started the fishing from a kayak madness since moving here in May. I was anxious to try some of my spots with my new craft. The fishing was mixed. I had some pretty amazing striper fishing, some very slow steelhead fishing.

The highlight was O'Neill Forebay. I'm sure some of you are familiar with this spot. Along with San Luis Reservoir, these two bodies of water have put out all the freshwater striper records in the country and are part of the aqueduct system bringing water from the Delta down here. If you're ever taking a drive up to the Bay Area or anywhere up north on I-5, it's worth a stop - especially in fall or spring when the wind is down. I arrived at about 4pm on a Friday afternoon and certainly didn't want to delve right into Bay Area traffic at that time on a Friday. Kayak fishing in 80 degree perfect weather was a much nicer alternative. While setting up on shore, I heard a couple splashes that I assumed were lures hitting the water from two nearby float tubers. It then quickly started sounding like it was pouring rain and I looked up to see about an acre of boiling stripers exploding on baitfish in 6 feet of water. I quickly put everything together but some Jims in a powerboat blazed right up on top of it and it was over before anyone with a little more sense could get nearby. It really didn't matter though. In about a half hour, there were smaller groups of boils all over the place. I found a nice spot between two schools of boiling fish and had nonstop topwater action for about 2 hours until it was near dark. I only threw poppers and Zara Spooks and probably had about 50-75 boils on the lures and landed about 12 or so. None were huge but a few were in the 25" range. For my newbie kayaker status, these fish represented my personal best catches from my Marauder (I still haven't caught anything but barracuda and calicos around here).

After the debauchery of the weekend, I headed up north to the Humboldt Nation to visit some friends. The rivers were lower than I've ever seen them. I don't get many chances at fly fishing in rivers down here so l left the kayak out for this part. It was pretty slow. In two days, I managed to get one adult steelhead up to my feet on the spey rod. When it took off on its final run after seeing me, it bent the hook into an L shape and promptly unbuttoned itself. Oh well, at least I got to feel the wrath for a little bit. I landed one other "half pounder" about 18" and that was it. My buddy landed an adult with conventional gear.

On the way home, I stopped to see my parents and spent a last morning fishing SF Bay in the kayak. It was really fun to do some striper drifts in the kayak along a few islands that typically produce in PBs when the tide is moving. I landed a couple barely keepers and called it a day after quite a bit of paddling exercise.

All in all, a fun trip and I'm slowly gaining confidence fishing from these little plastic slay rides. Now it's time for a . Hell, for now I'll take a couple of these bonito that everyone seems to be nailing. See you guys out there on the water. Look for the guy in the white Cobra Marauder that seems confused and out of sorts. I lost my camera so sorry for the blackberry photos - I only took a couple of one of the better stripers from O'Neill and the 1/2 pounder steelhead.

Jon