Our initial plan was to head to Rat’s grandma’s house boat for Memorial Day but it was being occupied. So Matt called up some of his friends that have a house on Lake Camanche. They are usually there every weekend but they were cruising on a Harley ride out to Yosemite so they let us have the house to ourselves. Not a bad trade for missing out on the House Boat this year.

Camanche can be tough. I’ve had mixed luck there. So have the other dudes. Matt has been there quite a bit becasue he installed the linoleum in the house we were staying in. He has crashed up there, installed linoleum and then fished quite a few times. His luck has kind of been the same. We were determined to hit Amador for night fishing and try to avoid the crowds that would be about during the day.

When we arrived, we could see the mayhem ensuing on the lake from the house. It’s not directly on the Lake but there is a good view from there. We were asking around for direction to Amador and we were very surprised to find out that it was only a ten minute drive away from where we were at. It was a pleasant surprise for Tomcat, Matt, and I. In true Turd form, we began drinking. I was wrecked from the previous night which consisted of a Ramp Jam/BBQ/Kegger. Nice. I love the summer. OH SHIT! I forgot this part of the story. SO GNARLY! On our way there, I was pulling Matt’s boat with my truck and we get to the hill off 680 near Mission road. I’m cruising a steady 65 and we had already had some fish tailing problem with the trailer, nothing too gnarly but cause for concern. Well, we hit the top of the hill and roll over a medium sized bump, it pitches the trailer into a fish tail frenzy! I’m breaking and the fish tailing gets gnarlier, the truck is screeching, the the trailer is going in and out of multiple lanes, it was sketchy. So i punch it, Matt is trippen, I’m trippen, Tomcat is buggin, and Code Man does not know what the hell is going on, he’s a dog. I was counter steering the fish tail and pumping the gas at the right time and after about a quarter mile of fighting the trailer trying to flip us we finally straighten out. It was so sketchy man. We could have been seriously injured and we were going down hill so who knows how many times we would have rolled. I’m so glad we got out of that unscaved and honestly, it was a real shitty start to an amazing weekend.

So any ways, our first night of Amador. We were surprised with it’s size. It’s pretty damn small. But it looked good. Lot of coves and points, rock walls, tullies, weed mats, and a shit load of fisherman. Not bad. Best part about it is that we were launching at 7:30 pm. Kind of expensive though. 41 bucks for launch and three fisherman.

It took us awhile to get on a fish. Maybe a half hour or so. First fish was from Rat(not a surprise, ,the dude has been killing it lately). And the second fish was a perch. I don’t know what kind of perch but it looked like a great snack for a 5 plus pound bass. My buzz was kicking in real hard at this time plus, I was dead tired from the night before. I managed a few fish on the 10 inch junebug worm, no size but it’s great catching a fish on a 10 inch worm at night. It reminded me so much of Clear Lake. Ahhh, Clear Lake. I passed out on the boat at around 11:30. I just couldn’t hang anymore. Matty was catching fish and he continued to catch fish all night. He roped in a few 4 pounders and a good amount of threes and two. He was using Crank Baits, jigs, and a Magnum Lizard. I actually even woke up to him catching a 4 pounder on my crankin’ rod. He would bring it from deep to shallow off of a point and tap the top of the weeds and then boom, a fish would be there. Got to love it when you find a pattern. Poor Tomcat, he was enduring the good ole’ skunk the whole time and this wouldn’t be the only time Rat was the only one catching fish on the boat this weekend.
So the first night at Amador ended at 2:30am and I only got to enjoy half of it. Thank God for bass boats, huge decks that are great to sleep on.

We get back to Camanche and realize that we don’t have the key to get in the damn gate. Yeah, it’s 3:00 am and they don’t open until 5:00am. What could we do? Well, we drove to Jackson hoping that there was something to eat and we were rewarded with a Denny’s. Mmmmmm….Well we had to stay up until 5:00and wait it out.

I woke up the next day at 11:30 and the other dudes were still sleeping. I decided to hit the beach to et some eye candy from the Memorial Day masses. Nothing too special, but at least I got my fill. Drove right down to the lake and threw the ball for Cody. It was Mayhem on the water. Boats everywhere. Although, this was the day I wish we could have had party time on the lake. I like bikinis.

The other dudes didn’t arise until around 2:30. I woke them up actually because I need some homies down at the beach. I was looking pretty creepy standing there by myself looking at these girls on a boat. A few brews and some much needed swim time, we were ready to go back to Amador. I had to play Uncle Mario becasue the other dudes were running low on funds. Another 41 bucks and we were back in the water at around 6:00. I felt a lot better this day. We hit some points and scraped a few fish. I was getting some dinks on the good ole’, shakey head until we decided to move to a pretty huge flat. It looked great. Weed mats that pointed out with 60 feet of water near by and a point that went out forever into deeper water. I managed to get my first topwater fish of the year on a buzz bait, and I was also getting fish on cranks, jigs, and 10 inch worms. I love those bites. Not just one thing will get them but multiple things. Tomcatty was catching fish and was catching a Lunker buzz too. it was great. I haven’t seen Tomcat buzzin in quite awhile and it was a pleasant sight. We could here this huge party going on near the lake and boy, we were so tempted to crash it. But who knows if the Valley folks would have liked some one as brown as me drinking off of their keg. Just kidding.

It was a good Sunday night on Amador, a 12 pack deep, some fish on assorted shit and after a few puffs of the greens, I was ready to call it a night.

We slept in pretty late the next day. Although we were not going to be getting on the roads with the rest of the Memorial Day weekend warriors. We decided to spend our last day on Camanche. Hopefully we’d catch some fish and get to see a few more bikinis. The bite was on right away, well for Matt it was. He caught some nice sized largies and spots at our fist spot. I just couldn’t get bit, and neither could Tomcat. We hit a few other spots and Matty continued to land fish as we were scratching our heads wondering what the hell we were doing wrong. No matter how bad we wanted a fish and how hard we tried, they would not bite mine or Tomcats baits.

Like I said, Matty is on fire. He reported catching an 8 last week the next after we got back from Camanche and a 5 today. Thanks to the Irons family for letting us crash your Camanche haven and thanks to Matt and Tomcat for joining me and Codeman for this trip. I’m glad we made it back safely and please everyone, be careful. Make sure your trailer is rigged properly and remember, no fish is worth your safety.(maybe an 18 pounder for a pinky finger.)