My son and I sampled the trout and bass fishing at Cachuma yesterday for 12 hours of mixed results. This was my first attempt at bass fishing (being "salmonoid", I am more experienced with norcal salmon, stealhead, and trout) and I was humbled. Not seeing beds, and my son being more interested in quantity than quality, we motored to likely spots throughout the lake and blind tossed the 3" sandbass special BH swimbait, even smaller green storm swimbaits, and the 3" pepper trout BH swimbait, for no hits, runs, or errors (well, maybe errors). In desperation my son wanted to dropshot the nightcrawlers (that he bought for trout drifting) for bass. I tried to talk him out of it because we wanted to release bass in the best shape and I did not want them to be swallowing crawlers. My son said I should not worry about this because he would liphook the bass by setting the hook quickly. I was skeptical but I do not get to see my son often, and he was my fishing guest, so I did not try to stop him. As luck would have it he caught two fish that swallowed the dropshot hook, but the good news was that these were both trout. (No bass were killed or harmed during the making of this fishing trip.) These dropshot trout were caught behind Arrowhead Island (near the northern point in about 10 feet of water. Go figure. After all this bass frustration we decided to troll for trout. I used a traprigged 3" BH pepper trout swimbait, but my son wanted to use his favorite yellow/blackspotted (Bee) roostertail. Unfortunately, the very slow speed that he wanted for optimal performance of the roostertail brought my swimbait (1/4 oz. leadhead) to a 10 foot depth too quickly so my lure was too close to the boat; about 20'). (I usually like to troll for trout no less than about 50 - 60 ' from the boat unless using downriggers at great summertime depths.) When my line went 50-60' behind the boat my swimbait was too deep. Again, my son was my guest, so we began to troll at a slower roostertail speed. Bang, my son lands a short smallmouth near the northside cliffs before Santa Cruz Bay. Bang. bang; my son hooks two and nets one trout at the mouth of Santa Cruz Bay. I am converted, so I switch to the same roostertail. Bang, bang; two more netted trout outside Johnson's Bay but for my son, not me. I get nothing, the wind howls, and we head for home. Some lessons. 1. My son was using Mike's Salmon/Steelhead Scent (I was using Smelly Jelly), with which he catches salmon, steelhead, and trout in norcal. 2. I insisted that my 4' leader between my keelweight and the roostertail (that I eventually started using) was long enough (because I have caught many trout limits and mooched salmon limits with 4' leaders), but my son was using a 7' leader. 3. After you teach your child everything you know about fishing, and get him or her addicted to it, be prepared to start learning from junior. PS. We saw many trout being caught, but no bass, so maybe our bass-skunking was not entirely our fault (a post-frontal situation?) Bob


Bob.



Bob