Castaic Bass Club Blog

January Meeting

Our meeting got off to a slow start last month due to it being the first one of the New Year. Lots of paper work to update, names addresses, phone numbers, emails ect ect. Mike made his announcements. Eddie and I circled around and did the pairings for Piru. We had to have 2 boaters with 3 in the boat. It’s important that we get our boaters out on the water. Right now we only have a total of 15 active boaters we have a couple that are in repair mode or paperwork issues. We had a nice raffle to close out the meeting. Hope to see ya all at the February 9th Meeting 7pm.

Tournament Results

Well ole Piru Lake had it out for some of us last month. With reports of a tough bite or no bite at all the light threat of rain looming over us. It turned out to be a very nice day to be on the water. All in all if you look at the over all results we as a club had an impressive weigh in. We had 38 fish weighed in for a whopping 94.87 pounds. That’s a 2.50 pound average. I for one couldn’t believe what the lake was kicking out for a January tournament with 53-degree water temp. I was of the mindset that we were going to be fishing deep water all day but that was not the case.  Anyhow with only 2–5 fish limits being brought to the scales. Here is how it went down. In first place Ron L. and Gary P. with a 5 fish total weight of 13.74 #’s and with 2nd big fish of the day @ 4.32 #’s. Second place goes to Lenden R. & Tony F. with a 5 fish limit for 12.47 #’s. Sitting in third is Mark P. & Eddie C. with a 4 fish limit of 9.53 #’s. Taking Big fish Honors this tournament is Orin T. with a big fish weight of 4.67 #’s. Congratulations to everyone nice job!
February finds us in our very own back yard fishing Castaic Lake on the 12th of February. Non-Boater fee for this will be $35 we will be launching from the west ramp. Please remember to have your boat retagged after you go out pre fishing. Write a note and place it on your dashboard the tagging area for Castaic is easy to drive past.

Be safe and I’ll see ya on the water.
Ron Licari
VP/TD

Mike’s Place

The year started out great and it is shaping up to be another fun time out on the water. The weather may be a little warmer than usual, but the water temps are still quite cold. The past few weeks the temps have been hovering around the low to mid 50 degree mark. Water levels are up and the fish are showing signs of life. Please remember to take care of your deep caught fish by needling them as quickly as possible. Some fish are caught shallow but show the symptoms of deep caught fish, mainly floating. These fish also need to be needled immediately. Remember to leave a small amount of air in the bladder otherwise the fish will sink to the bottom and lay on their sides. Make sure that there are still a few bubbles still coming out when you remove the needle. If in doubt, call over to another club member for help with this procedure. Please take care at all times when handling our most valued prize, from catching to weigh-in to final release. Help protect and preserve.

Thanks and see you soon.
Be safe,
Mike Iljin

June Meeting

Our June meeting was short by design.  Once the regular meeting adjourned a group of volunteer members stayed to help create our lake schedule for 2011.  Every member of the club was advised of this special session and was invited to attend, give their input, suggestions of which there were numerous and vote.  Even if you could not attend, it was clear that you could send in your lake choices by proxy.  Before the list got posted to the website I received complaints about the new schedule.  The main complaint was ‘too many tournaments at Castaic’.  The second was the plan to have a tournament, any tournament, at the Lower Lake.  And finally, the one that bothered me the most was that the schedule was Mike Iljin’s plan and it was somehow rubber stamped by or ramrodded through the membership.   Let me address this last one first.  Mike did not even vote.  He put each month forward and asked for lake suggestions.  It is a fact that a margin of one vote resulted in an additional tournament at Castaic and not at Piru.  This was not “MIKE’S AGENDA” it was voted on by the members present at the meeting.  I guess that actually covered complaints #1 and #3.  Now let’s talk about the lower lake.  I fish it, so do many of the other members.  It is fun and it is a different body of water.  One of the tournaments there will be a family fun day after the weigh-in.  All of the member’s families will be invited for a picnic lunch on the club.  We are going to try to have kayaks available to any member who wants to use one.  It is going to be fun.   I know this is a departure from the usual newsletter and I also know that undercurrent and belly-aching occurs in every club.  If you have something to say, say it at a meeting.

Remember, the meeting in July comes early on the 8th.  See you there.

Tournament Results

I guess we can’t complain about the weather at Castaic for the June tournament unless you were counting on a marine layer in the morning for a blade bite.  That didn’t happen.  This is Castaic so as usual the wind came up in the afternoon, you can almost set your watch by it.

In the end it was Nick Langer and Chaz “Hook Setter” Valenzuela with 4 fish that weighed 14.12 pounds and included Nick’s tournament Big Fish, a very nice 6.23.  In Second place were Mike Iljin and Gary “Net Boy” Priddy with 11.59 pounds. Gary also had the second biggest fish that day with a nice 5.47 pounder (honorable mention, no money).  In third place was (you guessed it) Kevin (I wear an Extra Large Jacket) Miner and Tony Franks with another 4 fish limit at 7.95 pounds.

Mike’s

Summer is now with us and along with the extra crowds comes more heat. While it is very important to take care of our prized catch it is of greater importance to take care of ourselves.  Long hours in the sun can and will result in heat stroke. Take care of each other on the boat, remind your partner to drink PLENTY of fluids and to use sunscreen.  In most cases of heat stroke it’s already too late if you start feeling the symptoms.  Have fun in the sun but be prepared and be careful.