08-08-2007, 04:05 PM
Utwalleye invited me to go to Yuba with him and Crossineyes to fish for the walleye yesterday. I have fished with them before and knew of their talents as walleye fishermen. In fact, Utwalleye was the one who took me to Deer Creek several years ago and taught me how to catch walleye there. Since then I have fished with both Chuck and Ken many times. If anyone can catch walleye these men can! I had to go to Yuba again to check out the walleye situation. This time we went in a boat—Chuck’s boat. In Chuck’s boat I knew we could go all over that reservoir and check out the walleye situation.
I teamed up with Chuck and Ken at the Orem Center Street exit at 5:30 am. We arrived Yuba about 7 am. There was a small breeze on the water. We threw a few crankbaits near the rocks just off the Painted Rocks boat harbor to see if we could catch the attention of some Pike. We were unsuccessful, so we boated down to the East Beach and started trolling bottom bouncers with crawler rigs. I caught the first perch, but was quickly followed by Chuck and Ken. In fact, we caught perch nonstop from the time we arrived until the time we left at about 4 pm. I have never seen so many perch. We started to run through the nightcrawlers like we had a nightcrawler farm. I put on a Berkley Power Worm so we wouldn’t run out of crawlers. I believe I caught as many perch on the plastic worm as I did on the real thing. We trolled all over Yuba from the Painted Rocks boat harbor to the main harbor/ dam, and back to Painted Rocks again. We crossed the reservoir several times in the process, and we trolled over areas multiple times that appeared to hold pike, and hopefully walleye. We never saw a walleye! We fished walleye point carefully.
While we were near the dam we noticed a lot of dead trout. We also noticed trout dying near the shore. I don’t know why!
In the afternoon Chuck hooked into a huge Pike. He got the fish near the boat and it broke or cut off his line. Chuck rigged up a crawler rig using braided line and went after another Pike in the same area. Wham! He boated a beautiful Pike. We took pictures of it and released it.
The wind was pretty bad in the afternoon. Chuck struggled to keep the boat where he wanted it, so we could keep the bottom bouncers where we wanted them. It was almost impossible for him to do so. He struggle with the wind, trying to keep us on course while constantly catching fish, and trying to put on new bait, after catching fish or after the pesky perch “robbed” the bait. After a while we decided to troll crankbaits. Again, we constantly caught fish. Sometimes the perch we caught were almost as large as the crankbaits we used.
We had a great day. We constantly caught fish, and we enjoyed each other’s company. Ken and Chuck are great guys! I had hoped, however, that someone would have caught a walleye. We were using walleye tactics and crankbaits all day long. The experience reinforced my belief that there aren’t as many walleye in Yuba as many people claim. Crossineyes (Ken) is more positive about the walleye situation than I am. He feels that they are there, in schools that we just didn’t find. I hope he is right.
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I teamed up with Chuck and Ken at the Orem Center Street exit at 5:30 am. We arrived Yuba about 7 am. There was a small breeze on the water. We threw a few crankbaits near the rocks just off the Painted Rocks boat harbor to see if we could catch the attention of some Pike. We were unsuccessful, so we boated down to the East Beach and started trolling bottom bouncers with crawler rigs. I caught the first perch, but was quickly followed by Chuck and Ken. In fact, we caught perch nonstop from the time we arrived until the time we left at about 4 pm. I have never seen so many perch. We started to run through the nightcrawlers like we had a nightcrawler farm. I put on a Berkley Power Worm so we wouldn’t run out of crawlers. I believe I caught as many perch on the plastic worm as I did on the real thing. We trolled all over Yuba from the Painted Rocks boat harbor to the main harbor/ dam, and back to Painted Rocks again. We crossed the reservoir several times in the process, and we trolled over areas multiple times that appeared to hold pike, and hopefully walleye. We never saw a walleye! We fished walleye point carefully.
While we were near the dam we noticed a lot of dead trout. We also noticed trout dying near the shore. I don’t know why!
In the afternoon Chuck hooked into a huge Pike. He got the fish near the boat and it broke or cut off his line. Chuck rigged up a crawler rig using braided line and went after another Pike in the same area. Wham! He boated a beautiful Pike. We took pictures of it and released it.
The wind was pretty bad in the afternoon. Chuck struggled to keep the boat where he wanted it, so we could keep the bottom bouncers where we wanted them. It was almost impossible for him to do so. He struggle with the wind, trying to keep us on course while constantly catching fish, and trying to put on new bait, after catching fish or after the pesky perch “robbed” the bait. After a while we decided to troll crankbaits. Again, we constantly caught fish. Sometimes the perch we caught were almost as large as the crankbaits we used.
We had a great day. We constantly caught fish, and we enjoyed each other’s company. Ken and Chuck are great guys! I had hoped, however, that someone would have caught a walleye. We were using walleye tactics and crankbaits all day long. The experience reinforced my belief that there aren’t as many walleye in Yuba as many people claim. Crossineyes (Ken) is more positive about the walleye situation than I am. He feels that they are there, in schools that we just didn’t find. I hope he is right.
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