Union Valley Reservoir, CA

On 05/23/13 I had the privilege of fishing Union Valley Reservoir for the first time.  The lake is a stunningly beautiful high sierra lake located in N. Ca.

Union Valley Reservoir is a lake in eastern El Dorado County, California, about 20 miles northeast of Placerville. The 277,000 acre feet lake is in El Dorado National Forest in the Sierra Nevada at an elevation of 4,870 feet.  It was formed in 1963 and offers recreation such as boating, fishing and camping.

My Wife, Cheryl and I attend Bridgeway Christian Church in Rocklin Ca.  The church has an annual "GUYS ONLY" camping trip.  This year it is being held at Union Valley Reservoir.  The idea was to do some pre-fishing so that on 06/01/13, I could bring my boat up and take some of the guys at the camp out fishing.  

My buddy Glenn Dougherty agreed to also pull his boat up for that day to take some of the guys out.  Neither one of us had fished the lake before so I thought that at least one of us should look like he knew what he was doing.

Glenn has a 19' Alumaweld and I have a 19' FishRite Performer.  We can both fish three guys comfortably without tangling too many lines.  It also presented an opportunity to try to out fish one another.  It is always good to be out fishing with buddies but it is always GREAT to out fish them or at least try.

   

I got up on 05/23 at 0400 Hrs and had the boat 

hooked up and ready to go at 0500 Hrs. My friend, John Erickson agreed to join me for this trip.  John is kind of new to fishing and wanted to learn some down rigging techniques and how to catch Kokanee.  By 0645 Hrs, we were launching the boat.  Two other boats had just launched and were still at the dock.  I checked in with them and found that they had both fished the lake numerous times before.  They reported that the Kokes were hitting on Red and or Green colored Hoochies with rainbow flashers.  I had the flashers and just about every color hoochie but those two.  They also said the Mackinaw were on the bite but holding pretty deep around 100'.

As we launched, the air temp was 27 degrees and the water temp was 57 degrees.  The lake was covered in a tulle type fog with snow capped mountains in the background.  It was stunningly beautiful.  I had to stop the motor and just marvel at what beauty God had created.  It was perfect except for the 27 degrees and hands that were to cold to bait the hook.  It was so quiet that I did not want to spoil it and deployed the bow mounted electric trolling motor and began to troll.  I was happy to see the other two boats had also cut the main motors and were running electric trolling motors.

I immediately started marking fish at 100 plus feet that looked pretty big.  I am guessing they were the Mackinaw the guys had told me about.  We also starting seeing a few fish in the 20' to 40' range that I hoped were Kokanee.  We had the down riggers set at 15' and 25' trailing a Pink Hoochie tipped with garlic corn and a Greenish Yellow Hoochie also tipped with corn.  Running straight off the stern we also had a lead core line out at about 15' deep with a green Wedding Ring tipped with a red worm.

After about an hour of only one missed hit we decided to start to change things up a bit.  Put a red Wedding Ring on the Lead core and dropped it down another color.  dropped the down riggers to 30' after hearing form one of the other boats that he had two hits and lost one at the boat, all at 30'.

Sue enough after about 10 minutes at 30' the green / yellowish Hoochie got hit hard.  I reeled in a nice 13" Kokanee.  We returned him back to the water to grow up a little.

Still continued marking fish at all depths.  For awhile we dropped the down riggers to 90' to try and lure a Mackinaw over to our tasty looking Hoochies.  We had a couple missed hits on the Lead Core and eventually a hit on the pink Hoochie at about 90' that John was able to reel in and get a 12" Kokanee in the boat.  We also returned him back to the water hoping to see him again but grown up some.

We checked in with the other boats on the lake via our VHF radios and found that they were all doing about the same as we were.  At about noon we decided that it was time to head to the dock and back to the real world.

Slow day of fishing with only a couple of fish, the weather turned out perfect warming up to about 60 degrees, a beautiful lake, a good friend, a couple great cigars (San Lutano and Drew Estates Java), and  a couple beers.  Man I love being retired!

Joe

Psalm 19:14

The Beginning

This is the first published page of my Blog "Joe on the Bow".

It all started with recently retiring from a career in Law Enforcement and now having the time to pursue all those things that I am passionate about, that work got in the way of, such as Hunting, Fishing, Boating and Exploring.

For the entire month of Feb of this year I went to Uganda with a friend, Adam Neil.

God had laid it upon our hearts to construct a security wall around an orphanage located

in Lira Uganda.  The orphanage was started in 2004 by Christian Life Ministries out of Kampala Uganda.  I had been to the orphanage twice before with Adam and others as part of a team that installed a water treatment system and Solar lighting in the ten homes inside the orphanage.

During our time in Uganda, Adam would take time to type on his Blog "adamneil.blogspot.com" to keep all the folks back in the the U.S.A. updated on our progress, set backs and encourage them to keep us in prayer.  This got me interested in Blogs and I felt that at minimum it would be a way of journaling my adventures that someone else might also be interested in.

So the name I wanted to use for the Blog was "Joe on the Go" but it was already taken.  Then a friend suggested "Joe on the Bow".  Why Bow you ask?  Well I Bow hunt, and also have a boat that has a Bow on it as most boats do.  So it was just a fun goofy play with words.  Anyone that knows me knows I am all about Fun and Goofy.

Speaking of Fun, Goofy and Hunting, has anyone seen the picture of me with my Bow in  the 2013 Crooked Horn Outfitters catalog?  

The model they wanted to use (Tom Selleck) was way too expensive so they selected me because Tom and I resemble each other & I was free.

They even gave me some business cards for free.  Actually I have been working with the fine folks at Crooked Horn for over twenty years helping sell, promote and at times even help design products.

This year myself and the Crooked Horn Crew were at the Safari Club International (SCI) in Reno.  We were able to meet up with an old friend, Bruce Hallingstad who owns and runs the Becharof Lodge near Bristol Bay Alaska.  Bruce invited the gang from Crooked Horn to come up to Alaska this year for some hunting and fishing.

I put together a group of six friends that will be joining me on a six day fishing trip with Bruce and his Guides from 08/02 - 08/08/13.  Later on in the year Lennis Janzen, the owner of Crooked Horn will be joining Bruce for a Bear and Wolf hunt.

Crooked Horn asked that I start blogging about the upcoming fishing trip along with my other antics and of those I hear about in the outdoor world.  I will be trying to post on this blog while we are at camp with Bruce.  Check out Becharof Lodge @ becharoflodge.net  It is a first class operation and his rates are very reasonable for the quality of fishing and service provided.

I will be writing more soon and be doing some changes to the layout and graphics once I figure out how to do some fancy importing and editing.

Joe

Psalms 19:14