Fishing report: Week of Oct. 14

Published online on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009

Compiled by Dave Hurley and edited by Roger George, a central San Joaquin Valley native and local fishing expert.

BEST BETS

San Luis striper action heats up, Ly Tu said. Pine Flat bass bite turns the corner, Merritt Gilbert said. McSwain rainbows kicking out quick limits, Diana Mello said. Tulloch trout big and hungry, Danny Layne said. Big Shaver brooders hitting, Dick Nichols said. Delta bass on the prowl, Randy Pringle said.

ROGER'S REMARKS

When I'm fishing, it's an all-out effort with few distractions allowed. It chaps my hide when an angler fishing with me answers a barrage of cell phone calls or texts, his ring tone set on high. On top of that, the ring tone is some kind of rap song that he lets play all the way through before answering. Or worse, he lets the call go to voice mail. Then, after thinking about it a few minutes, decides he'd better check the inbox to see if it's worth returning the call. At this point I'm usually talking to myself, wondering if I'm running a floating phone booth.

I've been in a boat when in a minute's time there have been several tones, music scores and special-effects noises go off and everyone scrambles to see if it's their phone -- sometimes even as they fought a fish.

Another cell phone feature I hate at times is the ability to send pictures, especially pictures of a really big striper a buddy had just caught and that he sends you at 4 a.m., both to celebrate and to irritate you. Since no sane person would be trying to get your attention unless it was important at this time of night, I look at it. Of course, he deliberately sends just a picture, not telling me how big it is, where he actually caught it or on what lure.

Now I'm wide awake, wondering what really happened and ticked because I'm not going to call him to let him know his devious tactic worked. Two nights later at 4 a.m. it happens again. I resist the urge to look at it for almost 10 minutes before mumbling to myself that I know I'm going to get burned again. But what the heck, I open it and there it is, another big fish to haunt me as well as an underhanded "Gotcha!" If it wasn't for the darn cell phone he couldn't get me like this. Of course, I'm carefully planning on repaying the favor, very early one morning.

My new rule: Unless there's an emergency, all cell phones and iPods will be temporarily disabled or locked away on my 18 feet of floating sovereign territory. If that rule is ignored, the transgressor needs to make sure the device is properly backed up and that it's able to transmit through at least 100 feet of water.

"Can you hear me now?"

- Roger George

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PHOTO GALLERIES

Check out catches from local anglers that have submitted photos from their outings ...

Gallery #32 (new September 23)
Gallery #31
Archived Galleries

Take your digital camera with you so you can send us your pictures for our galleries. Please send your photos to fishpictures@fresnobee.com. Please include the following information: Your name, city, type of fish, length and weight of fish, when and where caught, and what type of bait used. Large photos work best — we can crop and reduce a picture, but we can't expand a small picture and make it look decent. You can also send photos to rogergeorge8000@sbcglobal.net.