Fished the Santa Ynez river on Saturday the 19th. Here is the breakdown:

Location: Parked at the last parking area and hiked back a few miles, close to the damn I believe, but I never made it all the way back there because the fishing was great where I was.

Conditions: In the 90's and humid as I have ever felt in this area, it even rained for a bit. Not too bad once I got into the water while I fished.

Tackle: Mitchell Spidercast reel, 4lb test and an Ugly stick lite rod. I fished with and caught fish on everything from Nightcrawlers, to rebel wee R frog ultra lite crankbait, Kastmaster in gold and silver, Chartruese no name spinner, and Panther Martins. The nightcrawlers were almost like cheating tho. EVERY cast would get bit in each new spot for the first few casts at least... I caught fish on my first 5 casts with a crawler at a couple of holes. I finally decided to switch up to make it a little bit more of a challenge and especially to weed out the smaller fish.

Fish: I caught too many to count, mostly in the 6-8" range, but some that went upwards of 10"+. The fish were showing incredible colors... greens, blues, yellows and reds... I am not sure if they were nesting or in breeding mode or what, but the difference in the males and females was amazing. I assumed that the males were the colorful ones and the females the drab ones. These fish fight like bulldogs when hooked and would even lodge themselves in rock crevases just like a rockfish in the ocean or a calico in the kelp. Pretty cool to see. These weren't trophy sized fish but on light tackle they were damn fun to catch. I caught just two smallmouths, both around 6" or so, but lost the big fish of the day which I assume was a nice sizes Smallie. I had made a cast into the deeper area of the hole, right along this verticle cliff face and got nailed after letting the worm sink towards, the bottom for about 15 seconds or so... I swung on it but the fish was sooo much stronger then everything else I had caught up to that point and caught me off guard. I had my drag set pretty loose and he peeled off line, went deep on me and took me into a rock or a tree or something. I thought I had him out but finally it wrapped me around something and that was it, the line severed. Nice fish... As I was leaving for the day I was watching all of the really little guys cruising right at the bank and all of a sudden two big smallmouth came cruising by. This is what I actually came for.. these guys were both over 12" long but would have nothing to do with anything I threw their way. They bailed up river but were nice to see anyway. It was getting late and I had to start my hike out. All in all it was great fun up there. And worth the hike in.
All fish released.
Question about these green sunfish... Anyone ever see these guys show up in Cachuma?? It amazes me that they live so well in that little river but never seem to venture into the lake that it drains into... Interesting stuff. I didn't get a picture of any fish as I am a numbskull but I took a shot of the part of the area I was fishing in after the fact... Beautiful up there... This was a killer lil pond that was probably over 10' deep... and is actually a lot bigger then this photo shows. This is at the end of the hole right on the bend in the river.

Attachment #1, (.jpg file)