Salt river trip 7/8/06 - 7/10/06

[anakin]

1st night , my brother & I caught a bunch of large gills (bigger then your hand) in the brush piles @ Schoolhouse on Rosevelt. By the time we got back to the stretch of river right below the diversion dam. Only three gills where alive. To make a long story short, lost a couple gills on snags. Tried tossing corn for carp & tossing the castnet but no luck. Ended up rigging an ultra light I usually use for gills/channels with corn & tried to catch some carp. At sunrise I got a run on the corn, set the hook, fish ran about ten feet then snapped the very old 6-8 lb test that I had on the reel. Very dissappointing !/rookie mistake , on my part. My brother crashed early & didnt really pay much attention to his pole leaving his gill on all nite to find it gone in the morning.

2nd day , Spent all day trying to catch gills. Brush piles that had previously produced, were now fished out. Made a new friend who was bass fishing but also loved catchin big cats. After watching him catch several large gills off the bottom while trying to help us catch bait. I decided to start fishing pieces of worm off the bottom with a slip weight too. After catching & being given several large gills, the bites were still far & few between. Started fishing the cracks of the rocks near the docks as suggested by another az native on the site. I started tearing into the little 2 - 3 inch gills.

During the day i had spoken with several other cat fishermen who said the nite before they had hooked up with a monster that had double over the guys 12 ft pole, at Schoolhouse next to the brush/timber to the right of the dock. During our convo he gave me some suggestions for spots I should check out on the river. One thing he also mentioned was that he never fishes the river when its real muddy, as he never has much luck. Instead he opts for Schoolhouse during muddy times.

We decided to head back to the river at dusk looking for the pull off for Eads Wash which is semi car accessible (figured that one out when i got temporily stuck in the sand) & a very short walk from the bathrooms/parking lot to the river. Found several nice coves/holes over in this area which I will now start targeting when im fishing the Salt. The new guy had a few runs on a toad during the nite. One of the bites came while he was sleeping in his truck , I grabbed his pole as soon as it was pulled off his tackle box. I felt the fish on, I let him load up the pole then went to cross his eyes! No luck ! I couldnt believe it! I let the toad sit a while then reeled in to find, the toad gone & to my suprise a cicle hook on the new guys pole. All I kept thinking was, "if i would of known, Im sure I would of got him" No runs on any of the gills , for either me or my brother.

Although I didnt manage to catch any flats this trip. I learned a few valuable lessons & found a few nice spots that im sure will produce sometime in the near future.

Things I learned...

1. Use your air pump only when needed/traveling. Other wise keep your bait bucket in the lake to keep the bait alive & happy.

2. Gills arent really as delicate when hooking as I first thought. Main thing you dont wanna do is hook them too low on their body behind their spines. For the first time no gills died because of being hooked. I was using small gills on 6/0 hooks! When hooking , you wanna drive the hook slightly diagonaly threw back towards head instead of straight across the back. This is supposed to help hook up rate. This tip provided curtious of a few San Carlos flathead hunters who were at Schoolhouse also fishing in the cracks of boulders for small gills.

links to new spots I found ...

1st new spot

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/arafats3rdeye/detail?.dir=baffscd&.dnm=145escd.jpg&.src=ph

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/arafats3rdeye/detail?.dir=baffscd&.dnm=a52cscd.jpg&.src=ph

2nd new spot

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/arafats3rdeye/detail?.dir=baffscd&.dnm=d4e6scd.jpg&.src=ph

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/arafats3rdeye/detail?.dir=baffscd&.dnm=963ascd.jpg&.src=ph

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/arafats3rdeye/detail?.dir=baffscd&.dnm=ad16scd.jpg&.src=ph

Brother with small channel caught on corn/bobber ...

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/arafats3rdeye/detail?.dir=baffscd&.dnm=a7f0scd.jpg&.src=ph

Brother with med size gill, we had ones almost twice as big ....

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/arafats3rdeye/detail?.dir=baffscd&.dnm=12bascd.jpg&.src=ph

[azcatman]

Anakin, I believe we ran into you at the Schoolhouse dock on Sunday night. We launched around five and 'm pretty sure it was you on the dock when we where launching. If it was I wish I would have known might have been able to help you out. We fished up river that night and had two half-hearted runs and no hook ups. Still better than last trip. Hope you have better luck next trip. Just keep after them and it will happen some night.

[anakin]

You werent those San Carlos guys I happend to mention were you? Im sure it was my brother & I as we were there around that time with our cooler / bait bucket tucked under the front of the dock for shade. Would of been cool to meet you guys. Its a small world !

[azcatman]

Maybe it was your brother. I saw the cooler under the dock and wondered whos it was. Was he wearing a yellow and white tee shirt? Who ever was there talked to my fishing buds more than me since it was my job to park the truck.

[SilencedMajority]

Anakin, couldn't get your pictures to work, but i know exactly where you are talking about! Ead's wash looks to me the perfect shore spot for fishing below the Diversion dam. Its not as crowded as it is closer to the dam, and I like the location better. Last time I went, I fished near that still pool next to the small cliffs, about 100 ft from parking. I liked that about it too. One question, was the water high enough when you went? I haven't been since may or so, but I told myself I would'nt come back until it rained some. It has been raining lately, so I'd like to know how it looks. thanks, tony.

[anakin]

Azcatman , not sure if that was my brother or not if the pics were working you could see if it was him you saw.

Silenced majority , thats the 1st new spot I fished. I had a good feeling about it & missed the only run that any of us had due to the circle hook incident. If you know where thats at, theres another really good spot not far from there on the way back take the first rd to the left instead of right & you'll find another lovely cove with some deep holes.

[anakin]

1st spot (Eads wash)

[anakin]

2nd spot - On the way back from Eads wash take left instead of right & you cant miss it.

[anakin]

This is a couple shots from the back of the second spots cove & a bad shadowy pic of brother & I from top of 2nd spot.

[SilencedMajority]

I think I'll try that 2nd spot as soon as I can get out there. When you took those pictures at ead's wash you stood right above where i fish, i've gotten a few hard runs on live sunfish right there in that tiny cove. It looks like it has a little more water, so I'm ready to start fishing it again.

One question, the 2nd spot your talking about, when you bankfish from there, how close can you park your vehicle? I love Ead's because I can see my truck from the bank. I'm not paranoid, but a couple years back on the Salt I arrived at my truck in the morning to find my two back tires slashed. That was so hard to get out of there, no one would help. We never found out who did it, although we thought maybe it was a group of young guys that came up to us looking for beer and marijuana, but we never do that stuff anyway.

[martinman]

Hey Dwaine,

I definately recognize that spot. Last year when the water was a lot higher, I was actually able to get my boat all the way up there...even managed to get it upstream from Ead's wash in the main current.

I was wondering what the water temperature is there? I was fishing downstream about another mile and noticed that the water temp must have been around 85 degrees or higher. As well, how shallow is the water outside of the "cove" area with the large tree next to it.

The river itself has some nice fish in it. I am just curious about the water temps because if they get too hot, a lot of the fish will swim downstream and back into the deep areas of the lake.

Ryan

[anakin]

silenced - on the second cove our car is parked right where my brother & I were standing in the last pic. You can see the car from where you fish. Those punks who slashed you tires will get theres. What goes around comes around. Thats so low class!

martinman - not sure about the water temp but couldnt of been any warmer then the water at schoolhouse as it was warm there too. The cove area had a couple holes that were about eight feet deep. My Brother & I check depths while swimming in there. The tree was actually a large tumble weed. It couldnt of been more then a couple of feet deep but right beyond the tumble weeds is where the holes where.