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Big Bass Update and Saltwater Bite

By Rob BelloniAugust 29, 2001

Freshwater

I know I know, the heading says Freshwater, but let's get some site news out of the way. First and foremost, my foray into the advertising world has come to an end. Calfishing.com is now completely ad free and will continue to remain so in perpetuity (or if I get really broke, hopefully not).
Getting to the fishing I'd say the most newsworth thing I've seen lately was that Ryan Thoni has been up to his old tricks at Chabot boating a 12.1 and 10.4 bass this past week. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Lake Chabot is one tough tough tough tough lake but if you dedicate yourself to it, it will eventually reward you. Two other big bay area fish have been caught lately. A new lake record 16+ pounder was taken at Shadow Cliffs on the main pond and another 16.2 pounder was caught and released at Chabot by Eric Cleland recently. You can see pics at bigfishtools.com here. Now those are some toads and it goes to show that they can be caught year round not just in the spring time.
Another thing to note is the good wood bite that has been happening even in the middle of August. Robert Linden from the Bass-n-Tubes club caught a 9.3 pounder on a 9" MS Slammer at Coyote Res last week. My good buddy and team partner John Lake had a 5 pounder, same place, same bait. I heard through the grapevine that Brian #2 even put some Margarita fish in the boat on wood not long ago. Just because it's summer time doesn't mean it's time to put that stuff away.
A couple of other sites I wanted to highlight if you haven't been to them already. Nicolo Raffo does a great Bay Area fishing site with a (relatively) new domain name at www.ichthy.com. Killer layout and good reports. Another site that I have been enjoying more and more is www.trophybassonly.com. Wild fisherman Fish Chris does a great job, there's lots of eye candy and good discussion in the message boards. Time to swing by and check that stuff out.

Saltwater

 I went to Lake Powell last week and I came back to find an entire page and a half of new messages in the Saltwater Board. That was really cool! I want to say a big thanks to the guys who I don't even know who have been contributing regularly to the site. BillH (who bagged a 35lb halibut recently!), TBrumfield (doing a number on the surf fishing action), Phil (our Morro Bay halibut connection), jchapluk (nice yellows at the islands!), Frank (with the new kayak sharing his stories), and the list goes on and on. I really do appreciate it and I know everyone else enjoys the reports.
Mid-summer is here and there is always fish to be caught somewhere. Tuna have dried up or the weather got to them in Morro Bay but I'm sure there will be more snaps in the fall. I'm still looking for the SB calico bite to take off. I think the water may be a little too cool still or something. Further south there has been lots of reports of yellowtail around the Coronados and boats from S.D. to L.A. have been getting mixed bags of albies, bluefin, and a few yellowfin. I can dig that.
I've been wanting to report some on the Northern California saltwater scene and we had some reports of some bigger seabass coming in lately. Nicolo and Wade got some shorties in their tubes recently up here and I know the big units are munching up the abundant anchovy schools somewhere out there. Somebody clue us in on this deal. I need to start going out up here but I just don't know where to start.
See ya on the water.

 
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