Hi everyone, its been a few weeks since I was on the water, at least in the Champion. I have however had a couple opportunities to wet a line, so I’m not going through withdrawals, yet. The week between Christmas and New Years Cindy and I went to Phoenix AZ to visit our grandson Daveed, a grandson, damn that makes me feel old. HA!
I knew that while I was there I would like to get some fishing in however due to gas prices we decided to take the car instead of the truck so of course I didn’t take the Champion, besides that my step son Brian didn’t have any place for me to park my boat. Guess what that meant? Yep, I would be shore bound, or would I.
3 days before we were scheduled to leave I posted a “Looking for open back seat” request on a popular Arizona bass fishing site hoping to find someone that might be able to take me out fishing for a day on Lake Pleasant. The reason I chose that lake was because of how close it was to where my step son lived.
The day before we were supposed to leave I got a response from a fisherman named Jim who just happened to live about 1 mile away from Brian, what luck! He was going to go to Canyon Lake, just outside of Phoenix, to prefish for an upcoming tournament. I gave him a call and set it up to meet him bright and early the following morning.
As it turned out we ended up leaving town later than we had anticipated so of course we arrived in Phoenix later than I had hoped so I didn’t have enough time to get a license that night so the plan to go fishing bright and early was not going to work. I called Jim to let him know that I would not be able to make it and thanked him for the offer. The following day I went to Wal-Mart and picked up a license so I could do some fishing.
Arizona has an Urban Fishing program where they stock city lakes and ponds to allow people to experience fishing. The following is from the Arizona Fish and Game Web site;
“Arizona’s Urban Fishing Program is recognized nationally as one of the best in the country. The Program is a
partnership with the Game and Fish Department and local Parks and Recreation Departments to intensively stock and manage park lakes for fishing recreation. Simply put, the Program operates on the premise that “if people can’t get out of town to fish, we will bring fish into town for the people.” The Program provides convenient, affordable, accessible and fun fishing for anglers of all ages and abilities.”
So off I go. My first stop was at Rio Vista Ponds which is located in Peoria, about 3 miles from Brian’s house. I ended up catching and releasing 4 bass, nothing of any size but still fun. I also caught 7 trout while targeting crappie with a Road Runner, 2 of which I gave to an elderly gentleman and the other 5 I gave to a little boy named Steven. He put them on his stringer and asked me if it was OK to tell his dad that he caught them. I laughed and said, sure, no problem. Next I took off to Cortez Lake which was about 7 miles away. While there I caught and released 3 bass with the biggest being maybe 2 ½ pounds, again, nothing big but still fun. I also caught 2 trout. It was getting late so I decided to call it a day.
The following day we went to Cabelas there in Glendale, not only to spend the gift card I received for Christmas but to see several FLW pros that were there for the day. I got to talk briefly with John Murray and Brett Hite, a couple nice guys. While there I found a few discontinued lures on the Clearance rack that I had been searching for so I purchased all 6 that they had left, What A Find!
The next day I took a drive up to Lake Pleasant, which is about 40 miles away from Peoria to wet a line. I tried several different lures but was unable to get bit. Then I tied on a Silver Buddy cast it along the dock and got one heck of a bite, the drag was screaming on the 8 pound Maxima. I believe it was probably a big striper but it came unbuttoned before I could see exactly what it was. What a rush! That was my only bite there but any time spent fishing is a good time.
Hopefully you enjoyed reading this and I didn’t bore you to much with this post
Thanks for visiting my site. Be sure to tell all of your fishing buddies and come back soon
Until Next Time, Good Luck and Tight Lines To Ya!
