Shooting the Bull With the Fishermen Fishing For Steelhead Below Monte Rio

Monday January 1, 2018 Monte Rio CA.

The sun makes for a nice day paddling

With today being the first day of a new year, I thought it would be better to start the year doing something fun instead of working on my projects.

Putting in at Monte Rio

I figured there would be too many people at Jenner so I drove on down to Monte Rio to put my boat in the water.

The sun was out and the wind was down, looking like a nice day. I could see one fishing boat down in the slot up ahead.river1

 

Fishing the slot for steelhead

I pulled in along side theses guys and shot the bull for a bit. Rein, Allen and Joe were in the boat. Joe was asleep in the bottom. No fish yet. They did say there were some reports of  big fish seen coming up the river down at Duncan’s Mills, just down below us a ways.fishing2

 

I left them fishing and went down the slot here, looking back up the river at them.Joe3

 

Nice river reflections this time of year.river4

 

I went by these mallard ducks resting there.ducks5

 

Sitting at the Villa Grande Hole in my boat

Villa Grande hole is just up ahead where I stopped my boat and sat and watched things for a bit.villa6

 

I decided to continue on down the river just a bit more, so I started to paddle off when I heard my name called.villa7

 

More fishermen show up

A couple fishermen were walking down to fish below the hole, Pete and John, I believe it was. I shot the bull with them a bit. Pete said he saw a couple fish go by this morning at Casini’s Ranch which is down below us a ways.

I left them and drifted down the river about another quarter mile and stopped by these ducks.ducks8

 

I stopped here and sat for a while. You can see the guys fishing back up the river.pete9

 

These merganser ducks were swimming around near me so I thought I’d try to get a decent picture of the male mergansers. The have a greenish dark head with lots of white on the body which makes the camera not focus very well.

Here’s a female and two male merganser ducks.mers10

 

This was about the best I could do on a picture of one of he male mergansers.male11

 

Paddling back up the river

Eventually I started back up the river stopping here and here. I slowly made it to this spot just below Monte Rio where I stopped for a bit.sit13

 

Fish on

I was paddling up the slot and just below the fishermen I’d gone by this morning. I saw a bunch of splashing around the boat so I knew they had a fish on.

Here they are trying to deal with the fish as their boat started to drift into the trees which isn’t good as the trees could cause the boat to tip over. Joe was pretty excited and screaming away in the boat.allen14

 

It’s a keeper

They just barely got out of the trees and had to go to the shallows to land their fish. That’s Joe looking over the side of the boat.joefish15

 

It was a keeper. Steelhead fishing seems to be picking up a bit as it’s been slow down this way so far this year.fish17

 

I paddled up and around them and headed to the boat ramp where I pulled my boat out of the water and drove on home for the day.

Not a work day

The sun was still out when I got home, but I still didn’t feel like working on any projects so I got the wood in the house for the night and had a nap and that was it for me today.

Nice way to start the new year.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Shooting the Bull With the Fishermen Fishing For Steelhead Below Monte Rio

  1. Lyn Henderson says:

    Nice story!
    Joe’s First news article!

Comments are closed.