Date: April 28, 2019
Time and Location: 0500 at Folsom Lake
Air Temp: 49-70 Degrees
Water Temp: 70-77
Spawn and Post Spawn
Wind: SW 0-3
Water Clarity: down to 20 feet
Sunday morning early, at zero dark thirty, to prep the boat and find coffee. I’m on the move to get to Folsom Lake for Cast for Kids. I arrive at Granite Bay, to meet with the other boaters and hook up with Liz Hennecke and her husband John, who have taken over the responsibilities, of putting on the Cast for Kids event at Folsom Lake.
We signed in as the boater, and chipped in giving a helping hand at unloading all the gear for the kids. It was great seeing old fishing friends like Les Meyers, Sean De Hart, Danny Sozzi, Canopy Grenades Rich Mendoza, Jonathan Ashcraft, Todd Stanely and Jonas Agler, all boating for the kids. At 8am the kids all show up excited like it was Christmas. After a few instructions and directions from Todd, Liz and John we all line up the trucks and boats, to get our kids and parent.
I drew a young Elk Grove boy named Zach and his Father Beau. I understand from Beau that Zach had a learning and speech disorder to where it took him a long time talk. He is quite the energizer Bunny and makes up for his lack of talking early, to constantly asking questions, which I was only too happy to answer, even if it was the 15th time on that same question, huh Beau, lol. Great Kid. Side note; Beau was from Vietnam, at the time the US was getting out of the Nam in 1975. They couldn’t make the last helicopter, as you have all seen in historic video, so he and his family found a boat ride out of Saigon harbor and the Malaysian Navy picked them up. He was 9 years old and didn’t speak English. Now Beau has a BA Degree and is a structural engineer for the state. Shows you what hard work does. Beau was just as interested in fishing as Zach was.
I have only been on this lake a few times, so I got some intel from Jonas, and off we went. We ran North up the river arm, and started drop shoting submerged rocks, in the bays, near shore and off shore. I showed Zach how the drop shot works and he picked it up quickly. His first cast out and he hooks up a nice spot bass. We boat the fish and Zach was so excited he wanted to kiss the fish and put it in the live well to take home, which I quickly told him that the fishy’s mommy would miss him, so we put him back. After that ,Zach decided to play with the Bag of drop shot worms I gave him for most of the time, which gave time for Beau to fish. Not sure what he had more fun with, fishing or the bag or worms, lol. In the meantime, I tried to get Beau on fish and I did but he could only hook them, for a few seconds and then lose it. He didn’t have down the hook set yet. I fished with him and boated several drop shot fish, but at the last minute, I took out a spinnerbait and threw it out on the windy rock point, that we were passing, in order to power up and get back to the launch, and got smacked hard. I gave the rod to Zach and had him fight the fish. A few minutes later Zach lands a 3 pounder. Again, the smiles are all worth it.
A fast zip back, Zach loves the speed of the boat, we are back at the ramp. Danny Sozzi (thanks Danny) backs in my trailer and we load out and are on our way to the luncheon and awards.