Round Valley here I come

[briansnat]

I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon for three days and three nights at Round Valley. RV has always kicked my butt, but this time I'm going with new tricks learned here and elsewhere. Hopefully I'll have some good news to report when I get home Monday.

Hope everyone here has a fun and productive Memorial Day weekend on the water, or whatever you're doing.

[AndyS]

WOW, have a great time ! Please check yourself for ticks, they can be bothersome up there at times. Be safe !

[gratefuldad]

keep an eye on the sky. the storms roll in quick there.

[jimmythegreek]

the big thing with the valley is finding fish, unless u are trolling with downriggers or planerboards, the best thing to do is spend alot of time finding marks. Then jig them up or send down some bait. Alot of the non lakers are up high and in the shallows, in the past I spent alot of time fishing in no mans land, either troll the shoreline in 40 or less as tight as possible and up high or fish the bottom for lakers

[briansnat]

the big thing with the valley is finding fish, unless u are trolling with downriggers or planerboards, the best thing to do is spend alot of time finding marks. Then jig them up or send down some bait. Alot of the non lakers are up high and in the shallows, in the past I spent alot of time fishing in no mans land, either troll the shoreline in 40 or less as tight as possible and up high or fish the bottom for lakers

Thanks for the advice. I have four planer boards and two trolling rods with lead core. I received a downrigger for my birthday and was hoping to have it mounted for this trip. I installed it earlierthis week, but my mount wasn't nearly strong enough. I thought it was fine until I put the weight on it and the mount started bending like a pretzel. I was trying to avoid buying the removable factory mount for my downrigger because it's pretty pricy ($70 to $85 depending on where). Looks as if I'm going to have to shell out the money for the factory mount after all.

Anyway, no dowrigger this trip but I will be using the planer boards, though all four may be a bit much for me to handle solo. My wife will be with me but she doesn't fish, so will be no help. Two lines on planer boards and two off the stern should do the trick.

[Capt. Lou]

The one item that will allowi u to troll successfully is a simple down temp gauge !
This will allowing to coordinate UR troll efforts in productive holding water that relates to sought after species .
Knowing UR troll depth & proper temp depth for species is all u require to catch !
Another tip is to chose proper lure & action that would ignite a strike . The lure dictates UR troll speed & the temp @ depth will get strikes .
DR' S aren't necessary this time of year thermo has not set up so it's far more important to cover with a vertical troll set within a temp range than fishing blindly
Led outfits good choice now , just know where u r at various troll speeds with UR lures !

[briansnat]

Thanks again for the advice. Looking forward to using much of it.

[jimmythegreek]

you will have no problem running all your lines, Im no pro and can run 4 boards and 2 lines per downrigger for a total of 8 no problem. Its not like lake ontario where it gets nuts, if yo happen to hook up the biggest pain is resetting the lines. Personally I would run ur lead cores off the stern and which ever way u are gonna troll run 2 boards on the same side pushing up on the shoreline, thats where they are, at least the big girls. Lead core is tuff to feel when u have alot out and there are lakers involved, as andy would say they feel like wet rags

[briansnat]

Well so much for high hopes. I spent one morning after bass. As someone told me here, look deeper for them so I was in 20-40 feet with a jig and Carolina rigged plastics of various colors and forms. I also tried the shallows for ha-has.

Yesterday I trolled for 6 hours straight with four lines in the water. 2 leadcore and two on mono. I varied the depth and speed throughout the day, but at one point I actually got hung up on the bottom with the lead core in 80 feet of water so I was definitely in laker territory with that one.

My only fish was a good sized rock bass tossing a buzzbait at 4:30 am. It was so big I thought it was a smallie at first. Had to be 10 inches.

I don't feel so bad. I talked to a lot of other fishermen over the weekend and not many caught a thing. The guy camped next to us was out a lot and said the only fish he caught was a bass near the boat launch when he was waiting for his wife to show up.

Oh well back to the drawing board.

[AndyS]

WOW. Maybe a bit early for night rainbows but that could have been a back up plan. I wonder if tossing for bass in the dark would have paid off ? Well, you had great weather. That crystal clear water can be a tough nut to crack.

[briansnat]

WOW. Maybe a bit early for night rainbows but that could have been a back up plan. I wonder if tossing for bass in the dark would have paid off ? Well, you had great weather. That crystal clear water can be a tough nut to crack.

It was a nice weekend, fish or no fish. Got some very heavy rain on Sat, but it was short lived and a few minor showers. Then there was the group of campers in a nearby site who thought blasting Polish techno music on a boom box at 10 pm was appropriate for a state park campground. My wife and I were about to confront them when someone from another site told them to quiet down. The music was turned down, but they partied into the wee hours. I woke up at 4 am to "use the tree" and they were still going. I think someone in authority had a word with them because they were so quiet the next night I thought they were gone, but they were still there. Or maybe they were still too hungover to do anything more than whisper.

I tried some casting from shore in the dark and only landed the aforementioned rock bass. While trolling I was marking fish at all depths but they seemed most concentrated at 10-20 feet so I made sure I had at least 2 of my lines in that zone.