Willow Springs Marina

Fish report, Aug. 19

FRESHWATER HOT SPOTS

Trout: The best action in Southern California has been at Big Bear Lake with limits of holdover rainbows to three pounds or better for trollers working from the West Ramp to the dam. Green Valley Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains has been very good, and Jenks Lake is good, too. Limits are pretty easy at Lake Hemet for experienced trollers, but shore anglers near the dam are also getting fish. There are also quite a few holdover fish being landed by deep trollers at Cachuma, with scores lower at Silverwood and Casitas. The bite also remains fair to good at Cuyamaca. Trout action in the Sierra Nevada remains fair to good overall, with the June Lake loop (especially Silver), Virginia Lakes, and Bridgeport Reservoir all top bets. Other good bets include Twin Lakes (Bridgeport), South Lake is wide open, and the South Fork of Bishop Creek is good. For fly anglers, Hot Creek and the East Walker River are probably the best bets. Also some very good action in Bridgeport Reservoir, and Crowley is finally turning back on.

Black Bass: It's surface bite season. While the overall bass action could probably only be rated fair all across Southern California, almost all lakes have some good to excellent topwater and reaction bait action early and late in the day and this bite has just been getting better over the past week during the full moon. During the day, the fish generally sound to deeper structure where they can be caught on dark plastics, but that bite is much tougher. Top bet is still Diamond Valley, but the bites are decent at Sutherland, Otay, El Capitan, Skinner, Perris, Silverwood, Casitas, Castaic, Piru, and Cachuma. On the Central Coast, Santa Margarita, Nacimiento, San Antonio, and Lopez are all still pretty fair for bass.

Daily Kos: The Daily Bucket - herons and catfish

Seattle. August 2, 2011.

There were a number of highlights on today's bird count, but a couple of them stood out.

The marina gate was closed when I arrived at the last count site. I wandered north on the sidewalk, willow and blackberry thickets protecting the lake on one side of me, cars and bikes rushing past on the other. There's a secret path along here, hidden by willow branches, just a hole in the thicket one step off the sidewalk. You have to crouch to slip through. It ends at the water's edge where the cattails begin, where cottonwood and willow frame the view and provide a natural blind.

Pickings seemed slow at first, a bunch of turtles sliding off their logs at my appearance and two sleepy Mallards on the gravel bar where the Canada Goose nested earlier this year. I checked the Mallards to see if they were females or eclipse males. Eclipse males. There was a third bird poised behind them.

The image is about the best my camera can do at a distance, but I'm pretty sure that this is a juvenile Green Heron. It's the second one I've seen in all of my counts. Oddly, I've never seen an adult down here. Green Herons are known to breed up at the reclaimed garbage dump north of the University, so perhaps this young one has worked its way down 10 miles of shoreline to a new place. Perhaps it will stay for a bit. I'll keep watching.

Just after having its picture taken, the Green Heron took off across the cove, crossing paths with a Great Blue Heron that rose up out of the brush with a prehistoric " quuaaaaaakk

5 seconds. Great Blue coiled its head back and focused. 10 seconds. Great Blue released all of the energy in its neck and stabbed, fast, down, out of sight. The impact resonated across the cove, "THMMPK". Twice more Great Blue drew its head back, focused and stabbed. "THMMPK".  "THMMPK".