Saturday January 2, 2016 Monte Rio CA.
Headed down to Jenner
The wind was up a bit as I entered Jenner this morning and it was on the cool side, so I drove on down to the overlook at the river’s mouth to see what was going on. Joan, a lady that volunteers at the visitor center had all her camera’s set up so I shot the bull with her for a half hour or so. The immature bald headed eagle was down there by the mouth sitting on a log, but too far for a good picture. There was a dead harbor seal floating in the water below us.
The harbor seals and sea lions were hunting steelhead just in front of the open mouth and we were watching them.
Steelhead are running
Joan says there’s a seal dragging a steelhead across the beach. The harbor seal caught a steelhead and left the water to get away from the sea lions. It drug it up along the beach fifty feet or so before it took the fish back in the water to eat it.
Joan had much better cameras to get good picture’s way out there, so I’m sure she got some real good pictures of the action down there.
It appeared there were a lot of steelhead coming into the river to head up and do their spawning thing from all the action we were seeing in front of the mouth.
Chilly out
Standing there talking with Joan, the wind chilled me, so I decided to go back to Monte Rio where I knew the wind would be down and it would be a bit warmer, so I left and went back to Monte Rio.
Mixing with the fishermen
I put my boat in the water and headed down to the slot where there were a bunch of fishermen doing their thing. I could see one of them had a hook up as I approached so I waited until he got his boat back in his place and he held up his fish for the camera.
The steelhead.
I shot the bull with those guys for just a bit then continued on down the river which was looking real nice.
Just above Villa Grande I ran into Andrew who fishes down that way and shot the bull with him for a half hour or so, then continued on down river going past this egret sunning on the shore.
I’m just paddling into the Villa Grande hole here taking my time.
I spotted this cormorant up in a dead tree sunning.
I sat at the Villa Grande hole for awhile then continued on down the river headed for the Casini Ranch area where there is a riffle I like to sit at and check out for any big fish coming over it.
Casini Ranch
Here I’m almost to the Casini ranch.
There were some goldeneye ducks feeding on the river that I went by.
I hung around the Casini Ranch riffle for about a half hour watching two fishermen fish. One of them was real good with his fly rod which is always a pleasure to watch as they string a lot of line out and loop it in the air and throw it out there where they want it. I didn’t see any fish or see the fishermen have any action while I was there.
Big black cloud
A big black cloud came in over my head. It didn’t rain, but if got cooler like it was going to rain so I started heading back up the river.
At Moscow hole, I jumped this Black crowned night heron out of the trees and it landed just ahead of me so I was able to get it’s picture. There were three of them in the trees.
I paddled going up the river and stopped at this spot for a break just below Sheridan beach.
Not windy here
I bet it was windy down at Jenner but not in this spot as I paddled on up below Monte Rio.
This egret was fishing away as I went by.
Ominous looking
I paddled up the slot where most of the fishermen were which looked like this. This looks like I’m about to get run over by a bunch of boats, but they are all anchored up and fishing, so I only had to paddle around them. These guys had two fish for the day as of the time I passed on by. Don’t they look ominous? :O)
Got rid of the hooks
I stopped to talk with the guy in the front boat whose name is Bryan and lives down there. I gave him some fishing tackle I’d picked up down river being glad to get rid of the sharp hooks out of my boat. He hadn’t caught any fish but was enjoying himself just the same.
From there I paddled on up to just below the bridge at Monte Rio where there were some more steelhead fishermen fishing away.
From there, I went to the boat ramp and took my boat out and went on home. It was almost dark when I got home so that was my day.
Nice day.
I had already had a path shoveled off from before, so no mud, but I did shovel it a bite more before I went down the river. With this new rain, the mud will likely be back when the river rises again. Rivers and mud seem to go together. :O)
No mud at the put in that day?
I had some in my waters on Saturday and remembered you had to shovel it out of the way. We didn’t have a shovel. It got messy!