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SturgeUrge and I hit the river again Friday with king salmon in mind. We had new tricks to try, and Urge's brother came along too. I told the whole sordid story on my Club's Website:

Rio Vista Salmon 9/28 Skunk
We returned for another day to Rio Vista after taking one fish Wednesday.

We changed things up a little...we launched from Rio Vista instead of Vieira's...we added a chartplotter and an electric trolling motor.

Mother Nature changed things up too...the wind was blowing early and we could see "sheep in the meadow" when we crossed the HWY 12 bridge.

There was one third the number of boats compared to Wednesday.

The wind made trolling tough, and it aggregated the weeds so keeping our junk clean was a chore.

Still we were troopers and trolled for six hours around the top of the tide for no hits, no runs, and just a couple of unforced errors.

Fish were being caught...just not by us.

The Rest of the Story:
We added my GPS Chartplotter and a new electric trolling motor to our arsenal. The chartplotter gave us Speed Over Ground in real time. We used this capability to calibrate the trolling motor so as to replicate the exact trolling speed that worked so well Wednesday.

Well...that was a little tough...the stiff winds made the bucket unnecessary. SturgeUrge was really working hard on the main Sacramento to troll a decent line with the winds quartering across the F/V SturgeUrge's bow.

There's a lot of moving parts when the wind blows. The math get s a little complex...wind speed and direction...tidal current...engine speed...windage.

We didn't get a bite, the ultimate clue that you're doin' it right.

Even with 1/3 the number of boats, these boaters wanted to run too tight to us...the ones that weren't busy tailgating us...

After three hours of beating, we opted to seek shelter and began fishing the Old Sacramento from the confluence to up past Vieira's. We had lunch, the fish still with the lockjaw...

We finally pulled the plug at 4:30. Back at the ramp the dock's gangplank was underwater and the wind was still whipping. SturgeUrge said the wading felt good.

We learned a bunch of things that will come in handy on other waters, and help us dial-in our Delta Salmon Attack.

The chartplotter has a beautiful sunlight viewable LCD screen that should be standard on all digital cameras.

I'm pretty sure the camera makers don't use this screen because it costs too much and uses too much power. It would eat through camera batteries in no time.

Gone Fishing Again

Take Two!

SturgeUrge and I are heading back to Wednesday's "scene of the crime" to angle for more chinook salmon.

I grilled some of Urge's fish Thursday for dinner, and it was delicious.

We worked on the F/V SturgeUrge Thursday...we hoped to rewire the bow-mounted electric trolling motor...silent running and all...

Well the bow-mounted troller was too far gone...more than wiring...rust never sleeps as they say...

No worries, SturgeUrge had a spare in stock. This one is a portable Evinrude unit. Some squirts of BR50 penetrating oil, install on the kicker mount and we're good to go. We added another rod holder, this one center mounted so we can troll three rods comfortably on these Delta trips. It's going to come in handy on dungeness crab fishing adventures too...it's a perfect place to stow the gaff that we use to catch the crab trap floats, and the gaffman can stow the gaff right there without handing off to the skipper while hauling the trap line.

I finished the wiring for my GPS chartplotter Thursday after the SturgeUrge outfitting session. We're going to need the unit to calibrate our trolling speed when we run on electric power. It will come in handy come crab season too, it remembers exactly where we deploy every crab pot, and if the fog comes in, the chartplotter will lead us right to each pot, and back to the boat ramp too.

Salmon Fishing Report

 Here's the fishing report I posted to my Club's Website:

Wednesday Rio Vista Salmon
 We finally ditched California City and went the other way for a change. It worked!

We launched the F/V SturgeUrge at Vieira's Resort at 10AM and trolled down to the Sacramento main stem. I counted 45 boats at 10:30, and that didn't count those out of sight above Hidden Harbor. We'd seen one salmon boated on the Old Sacramento from the levee road before getting to Vieira's.

We turned downstream above Hidden Harbor and were trolling down the channel when my rod with the double chartreuse Silvertron went off. A coupled of head shakes, a couple of runs from boatside and a nice buck is in the net.

Woops, upon further investigation it was a Coho and back it went. The three athletic jumps should have clued me in...I'd estimate it at 7-8lbs


Well, at least we knew we were at the right place, at the right time, pulling the right hardware at the right speed!

On the next lap, in the same spot (off Ryer Island midway between the Old Sac and Steamboat Slough) My Silvertron did it's magic again, but it didn't stay on more than 30 seconds...I may have horsed it a little in the heat of the moment...

We made another lap and this time it's SturgeUrge's rod that goes off and his fish is head shaking harder, running harder and finally Sturge swims it into the net. Sturge was pulling a #5 silver Mepps.

This time it's the right kind, and it was 17-18lbs! It's still almost three hours to the top of the tide!

That was it for us, but we did see nets flying until 2PM, all in that same sweet spot, though closer to the eastern shore than we were running. I wouldn't say it was a hot bite, but after three fruitless trips to California City, it seemed like more than a scratch bite. All in all, we saw a solid half dozen fish boated.

I'm sure many were taken before we arrived on our Banker's Hours...

We're going back Friday. SturgeUrge's 18 pounder had the hooking jaw, and wasn't bright chrome, but the fillets are beautiful...krill-fed red. Yummy!

He he...
Giants looked good tonight beating the AZ Diamondbacks 6-0 behind another great start from Matt Cain Cain pitched 7 innings, gave up 4 hit, zero runs, walked one and struck out 6. Matt's now 16-5

Gone Fishing

SturgeUrge and I continue our quest for king salmon today. It's autumn and the salmon are making their way upriver. So we will fish the Sacramento River in the Delta near Isleton today.

Even this far inland, it's a tidal fishery and the tides are big all week. We'll be fishing the top of the afternoon tide...two hours or so before the top of the tide and a couple hours after.

The forecast looks good, highs in the upper 80s and afternoon winds up to 11mph.

C'mon fish!

New Camera Update:
It's all up to the Brown Trucks now. I called Adorama Camera Monday, and they sent me everything I needed to return the Samsung WB750 for a full refund. I bought it via Amazon Marketplace, and Adorama even pays for the return shipping.

I will order another one as soon as my card is refunded for this one. What are the odds that I'd get another one with a spot on the lens? Aside from the spot on the sensor, this little camera made awesome photos and the 1080p HD video it makes are beautiful!

Race 232 "September Fury"

Good news, the price has dropped from $161 to $139. The difference will pay for a Pelican Box to protect the replacement snapper!

Reno Air Race News:
Air & Space Smithsonian has a nice story on this year's races and the returning fans.

Space Shuttle Endeavour:
I'm seeing photos all over the internet of the Shuttle's final ferry flight over state capitols, the USS Iowa, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Los Angeles' Hollywood Sign.

As a taxpayer, it irks me that they've retired the shuttle program halfway through it's design lifetime, killing thousands of high paying jobs in America during the deepest recession since the Great Depression, and outsourcing those jobs to Russia. It blows.

More Loose Ends

Embedding the Wind Tunnel Videos has been real cranky this morning, so I split today's screed in half...I'm too tired to fight it this morning (I got up at 0430 to watch the Singapore Grand Prix, where the Formula One cars raced under the lights. It's a spectacular race venue!



Alex Zanardi Newz:
Wind Tunnel has been keeping an eye on ex-IndyCar Champion Alex Zanardi who won two Paralympic Gold Medals in the 2012 London Paralympic Games, and my be headed to the Indianapolis 500 next May. Enjoy Zanardi's Wind Tunnel interview:

Loose Ends

I'm amazed at how tired I am from my week at the Air Races. I've been slacking a little, but it's for a good cause...

Saturday night the San Francisco Giants clinched the National League West title with ten games still to play in the Regular Season. They have been on a roll as they say. Last night's win was their sixth in a row. AT&T Park sold out for the 150-somethingth time in a row. Three and a half million fans have been to the park this season.

Like I've said before, the Giants are playing a very enjoyable version of Major League Baseball this season. The starting pitchers have escaped whatever demons were giving them pause, and pitching like the World Beaters they were in 2010 when they did beat the World to become World Series Champs.

Reno Air Races:
The Unlimited Breitling Gold Race winner, Steven Hinton was interviewed after the show by SpeedTV's Dave Despain for his weekly racing wrap-up/bench racing show, Wind Tunnel:

 

Cookin' with TruckeeDave:
I'm tired, but I still tried a couple of new recipes Saturday:
From the Coconut & Lime Blog: Dill Broccoli Slaw I've been looking for the broccoli slaw in the grocery stores in the Inland Valley for a month. When I got back up to Truckee, my neighborhood Safeway store had it in stock. It's good stuff, crispy, tangy and a nice change from green salads.

My Safeway also had a great sale on fresh raspberries, buy one, get two free! I had planned to make a raspsberry tort, but Saturday I defrosted the garage refrigerator and found a pair of frozen deep dish pie shells, so Deep Dish Raspberry Pie it was!

This was the third pie in a row after making my Lumpy Peach Cobbler most weeks this summer. The pies have been turning out "a little sloppy" to put a kind spin on it...

Who knew there was so much juice in the little rascals? When I went into the kitchen this morning for some coffee, there was a note on the pie:

Sister K...whatta Kidder! I like "Head Wound Pie"

Space Shuttle Fly-By:
I watched NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour Friday morning as it flew around San Francisco Bay on it's way to it's Retirement Home in Los Angeles. I can't bring myself to opine on this today. I'll weigh in next week.