Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting up with Slowriprun. This guy is a master striper fisherman and overall, a very skilled and knowledgeable fisherman and cool guy.
Before I met up with up Slowriprun, I decided to stop by Loch Lomond Bait Shop in San Rafael to pick up some live mudsuckers. Although we planned to do some lure fishing as well, live bait is a surefire way of catching them at this particular spot in the North Bay. It’s good to have as a back up if lure fishing is unproductive. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer lure fishing over bait fishing, but it doesn’t mean I neglect bait fishing.
In addition to that, I wanted to meet Keith Fraser, a world-renowned San Francisco Bay-area sport fisherman and author. Keith is known locally as the "Sturgeon General of the Bay Area," and is currently a co-owner of Loch Lomond Live Bait shop.
I didn’t know that it was a cash only bait shop and I didn’t have any cash on me – kinda embarrassing - but Keith was so kind and said I could mail the payment to him. He said, “I’m trusting you,” and let me get the live baits on good faith. He didn’t even ask to check for my ID or anything, so I offered him my business card, so he could check up on the status of the payment or what not but he said he knows that I’m going to pay him and didn’t want it. Wow, talk about a cool guy. There’s no other shop out there that I know - retail or mom or pop shops - that would just let you mail the payment afterwards based on good faith. Goes without saying, I’m going to mail him the payment today. I’m not affiliated with Loch Lomond Bait Shop whatsoever, but I highly recommend this bait shop. Not only do they have excellent quality live baits, they have superior customer service, and you get helped by the legendary Keith Fraser himself. Please support this local bait shop. Everybody wins.
After one last pit stop at 7-11 to pick up a 12 pack, I finally get to the spot. It took me a long time to get there coming from San Jose. I woke up at 5:30am, left the house at 6:15 to pick up food, then bait, then beer, and finally got to the spot at 9am. Almost a 3 hour journey just to get there, but I didn’t mind if it meant that I got to meet the striper master Slowriprun.
I get out of the car and start setting up my rod, and an older man approaches me and says, “Jonathan?” I responded yes and greeted David aka Slowriprun. He had a topwater spook tied on, and I proceeded to tie a spook of my own on and we started lure casting for a bit. We move down and proceeded to cover water, but eventually, we just decided to set up shop with live bait and crack open a few beers. I got a couple of hits, but missed them.
Later, we decided to switch spots because it was slow in this area other than the couple of hits we had. Slowriprun took me out on his yak and we paddled down to an island in another part of the same spot. Once we landed, we set up again. We started whacking them in this area. We were really laying into them this time. It was one striper after the other at this point. We even had a double at one point. We fished until we ran out of bait and decided to call it day. They weren’t big, but they were all legal sized schoolies most were 18-22 inches with a couple 24 inchers in the mix. All fish were released.
I also have to thank Slowriprun because he’s into kayak fishing these days. I don’t have a kayak, so he accommodated, and fished on the shore with me. He said he doesn’t waste his time fishing from shore these days because the stripers at this spot cruise near the shoreline and if you walk the shoreline they usually get spooked, but casting from a kayak to the shore makes all the difference. You can also cover more water as well. On good days he’s had 100+ fish days. He’s had 500+ fish weeks. He’s also caught 40+ inchers and 20+ pounders out of this area. I guess most people would not believe it and think it’s bullsh*t because it’s not even conceivable to most fisherman, but it’s true. Then again, most fisherman also believe all stripers are migratory too.
I’ve learned a lot from Slowriprun. I was honored to meet one of the original guys who discovered this spot for stripers. Next step: I gotta figure out how to store my kayak, if I buy one again.
Picture of me and Keith Fraser at Loch Lomond Live Bait House:
Not all fish we caught are pictured, but here are some ones we caught below. Again, not huge, but none of the fish we caught were shakers either. They were all legal sized. On the yak, you can get into bigger ones more easily at this spot:
When Slowriprun and I got a double:
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Side Reports:
1/21/2016:
I haven’t fished for several months. I just needed to get out on the water, so I decided to go fishing. I caught a two largemouth bass in 10 minutes at an awesome local pond. Considering that it’s winter, I was surprised by the fast action that I got. I caught both of these bass on a Texas rigged Yamamoto Kreature fished weightless. After the 2nd fish, like all Yamamoto baits, it tore up fairly quickly, and it was the only the only Kreature I had on me, so I switched to a Fat Ika and fished 30 minutes more for nada and called it a night because I had to meet some friends. These bass weren’t huge. They were around 1.5-2lb class. All fish were released.
1/23/2016:
Went fishing with some friend to catch some rockfish at GGNRA. We first started throwing bigger lures. A couple of my friends were fishing with 4 inch Berkley Powerbait Swim Shad, one other friend fished a double tail grub rigged on a 1/4oz jig, and I fished a 5 inch Texas rigged Zoom swimming fluke on a 3/16oz bullet weight. We didn’t catch anything for the first hour, so I switched over to a very small 2 inch grub rigged on an 1/8oz jig. I started hooking up almost immediately. Got several grassies and black rockfish, but what really made my night was catching a legal lingcod at night. Sorry, but no pics were taken this night. All fish were released.
Advertising