5-12-12

Today I guided the DeSouza clan for stripers. With the water dropping I decided to head down to Verona and see if we could catch up with the fish. We launched at 5:30 and there was already a ton of boats on the water. We began drifting right in front of the ramp with no luck so we fired up the boat and headed up the fork of the Sacramento River. As we started our first drift we hooked up and the battle was on! The fish put up a hell of a fight and as it got close to the boat we got a good look at it right before the hook pulled out. The fish was a big hen in the 25 pound class, and swam off to spawn another day. Shortly there after we hooked a couple more but they were shakers so we headed further up the Sac to see what we could find. At each and every stop we were catching fish but alot of them were shakers so we kept on going up stream. The further we went up the river the less boat pressure there was but the fish were just as small. We ended up landing 6 keepers for the box and we lost another 4 or 5 right at the boat that were keepers. We probably caught 40 fish today but most were shakers. With the low water flows and high water temperatures the fish are going to spawn and it will be over before we know it. Hopefully we will get a increase in water flows on the Sacramento River and a new wad of fish will head up this way. It's too soon for the run to be over!!

Casey