01-23-2009, 12:59 PM
So, my buddy wanted to go to Yuba yesterday. He went the day before with his son and nephew. He got skunked and the three of them caught a grand total of one fish all day.
Obviously we needed to get away from the dam area so some kind of transport was called for. I wanted to take snowmobiles because they are fast, and mine was already on the trailer. Nope. He wanted to take my Polaris Ranger because it has a windshield and it's a comfy ride.Wimp!
I loaded the Ranger and we headed down. After everything was ready to head out onto the ice, I got looking around and the edges didn't look so good. Ranger is too heavy and I kept breaking the ice out to about a foot of water and could not get up on the ice. Finally got on the ice and headed out. Destination was the narrows, but by the time we got to Walleye point and saw a big crack with water coming up through it, I got a little nervous. Visions of a 14,000.00 machine falling through the ice do that to me. O.K., so now I'm the wimp.
We started drilling holes and looking for fish. My vex wasn't showing anything until we got out to where the ice has buckled and gets all bumpy.Perch and carp were moving through in schools. We tried half a dozen different lures and caught a few fish on everything we tried.
The interesting thing was how light the bite was, and how the biggest Perch were moving. I set up my Vexilar and an aqua view camera. I would watch for fish on the finder, and then pick up the monitor and watch them.I ended up catching four Perch that never even made the end of my rod move. I would see the fish grab my lure, then look at the end of my rod. Nothing. So, I set the hook anyway and brought them up. Sometime I would be sitting there looking into the monitor and a giant, fat, jumbo Perch would come meandering along. Belly to bottom, stiring up silt and not even showing up on the fish finder. The smaller Perch usually came in about six inches off bottom, but all of the jumbo fatties were swimming belly to bottom, and would stop and stare at my jig.I would jiggle it and stop. They would either swim away or ease up to it and just hold it in their mouth for a second, then back off and stare some more. We ended up with our 20 fish, but I was nervous all day as the ice was melting and slush was getting worse on top of the ice. I wasn;t sure how far my Ranger would have to swim to get to shore. When we got back to the ramp, I made my buddy get out and I made a mad dash toward the shore about 100' West of the ramp. Didn't break through very bad at all, but, I ain't taking the Ranger to Yuba again unless we get a serious cold spell. And as I'm writing this, it's raining in Spanish Fork. Yuba could real interesting if it's raining down there.
By the way, we tried Perch meat and caught a few fish, but the very best bait was eyeballs. They hit the eyeblls faster and took the hooks deeper than the perch meat.
WB
[signature]
Obviously we needed to get away from the dam area so some kind of transport was called for. I wanted to take snowmobiles because they are fast, and mine was already on the trailer. Nope. He wanted to take my Polaris Ranger because it has a windshield and it's a comfy ride.Wimp!
I loaded the Ranger and we headed down. After everything was ready to head out onto the ice, I got looking around and the edges didn't look so good. Ranger is too heavy and I kept breaking the ice out to about a foot of water and could not get up on the ice. Finally got on the ice and headed out. Destination was the narrows, but by the time we got to Walleye point and saw a big crack with water coming up through it, I got a little nervous. Visions of a 14,000.00 machine falling through the ice do that to me. O.K., so now I'm the wimp.
We started drilling holes and looking for fish. My vex wasn't showing anything until we got out to where the ice has buckled and gets all bumpy.Perch and carp were moving through in schools. We tried half a dozen different lures and caught a few fish on everything we tried.
The interesting thing was how light the bite was, and how the biggest Perch were moving. I set up my Vexilar and an aqua view camera. I would watch for fish on the finder, and then pick up the monitor and watch them.I ended up catching four Perch that never even made the end of my rod move. I would see the fish grab my lure, then look at the end of my rod. Nothing. So, I set the hook anyway and brought them up. Sometime I would be sitting there looking into the monitor and a giant, fat, jumbo Perch would come meandering along. Belly to bottom, stiring up silt and not even showing up on the fish finder. The smaller Perch usually came in about six inches off bottom, but all of the jumbo fatties were swimming belly to bottom, and would stop and stare at my jig.I would jiggle it and stop. They would either swim away or ease up to it and just hold it in their mouth for a second, then back off and stare some more. We ended up with our 20 fish, but I was nervous all day as the ice was melting and slush was getting worse on top of the ice. I wasn;t sure how far my Ranger would have to swim to get to shore. When we got back to the ramp, I made my buddy get out and I made a mad dash toward the shore about 100' West of the ramp. Didn't break through very bad at all, but, I ain't taking the Ranger to Yuba again unless we get a serious cold spell. And as I'm writing this, it's raining in Spanish Fork. Yuba could real interesting if it's raining down there.
By the way, we tried Perch meat and caught a few fish, but the very best bait was eyeballs. They hit the eyeblls faster and took the hooks deeper than the perch meat.
WB
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