While out pedaling around on the mountain bike Saturday, taking advantage of the unseasonably hot weather that hit the Bay Area this weekend (mid to high 90′s), I stumbled on another little urban carp spot.

I’d ridden past it before and not seen anything but when I passed it this time I caught a glimpse of a golden silhouette drifting out from under the shadow of the overpass. Read the rest of this entry

Just back from steelhead fishing up north, I had 1 day to check in on the sludge ponds to see if there were any carp stirring around before my dad came into town for the weekend for another business trip.

His last business trip out here a year ago paid off big-time with plenty of really nice fish and one particularly massive delta striper and I would have loved to attempt a sequel of that awesome day but the weather was forecast to be windy and stormy so we opted instead to stay flexible and possibly hit the surf or harass the local carp instead. Read the rest of this entry

Day 2, and sure enough, nothing like yesterday. I can’t get over how drastically the water gets jacked around by the city out here from one day to the next. It was far from a complete bust though. The fish that were so actively waving their tails around yesterday had mostly all vanished but there were still a few cruisers in the shallow channel on the opposite shoreline. Read the rest of this entry

I didn’t expect this when I lazily showed up at the sludge this afternoon anticipating another routine skunking. Carp were everywhere, tailing, daisy-chaining, cruising, and rooting; big ones, little ones, gold ones, and for the first time, a BLAZE-ORANGE little guy! Read the rest of this entry

Jeff had reportedly gotten into a few over-sized gold fish cruising & tailing a few weeks ago. A week later I made a quick scouting run out to have a look and sure enough, carp were everywhere! The mud holes that had appeared vacant of fish over the past few months were suddenly teeming with big, fat, golden beauties! The days had been getting longer, the weather warmer, and big gold tails were waving. With spring in the air, the 7 weight came out of the closet and when the weekend arrived, off we headed to trudge through the sludge.
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I did a little more carp pond exploring with Jeff and found a slough with a few nice fish that would consistently swim past and completely ignore any and every fly we’d put in front of them. After Jeff had successfully remained unsuccessful on a few of his own after-work trips I joined him for an evening and together we chalked up another day of defeat. Read the rest of this entry

The SF Bay Goldens have been ON over the last few weeks! May is really appearing to be the hot month for these sludge-pond, bottom-sucking hoovers. From the generic trout flies to the more unique, specialty “fly-of-the-hour” patterns, they’ve kept us entertained, intrigued, perplexed, and flat-out frustrated over the last two weeks. It’s been GREAT! Read the rest of this entry

I headed back down to the sludge ponds Saturday afternoon. The day was beautiful and sunny, but the wind was howling. I didn’t expect to find any fish and almost left the rod at home. I say almost, but I’d made that mistake enough times in the past, and I’m glad I didn’t make it again on this outing. As I got out of the truck, the wind about took the door off its hinges. The pond had whitecaps and had it not been such a sunny day I probably would have turned around and gone somewhere else. Read the rest of this entry

I slapped on the SPF 15, pulled the mountain bike out of the closet, inflated the tires, lubed the chain, grabbed the camera, and headed for the carp ponds. It had been a few months since I’d checked them out and those last few times were rather depressing considering the waterless wasteland the city had left behind in their valiant efforts of fending off the WNV (West Nile Virus). Read the rest of this entry

It started a few weeks ago while exploring some new waterways on my mountain bike. After about 15 miles of peddling along levees, through “Employee Only” parking lots and around saltwater marshes and brackish ponds, I finally saw what I was looking for. Read the rest of this entry