Fished the Santa Ynez river on Saturday May 17th. The day started out breezy and chilly when I arrived at the crossing I intended to fish. It was about 8:30am. I was the lone person fishing at that hour and it was incredible up there. There is always something special about being the solo on the water in the early morning. I could see and hear the fish rising and splashing as they ate... I managed to hook but miss two smaller fish in that first pool before I was competing with several other fisherman who had arrived. I moved up the river and found an incredible pool with larger trout, several of which I could see rising. I managed to land about 7 fish in the next few hours all in the 10" range with the largest going about 12". These were suprisingly active lil trout with several spastic leaps per fish as I fought them on my light tackle. I also caught a smallish sunfish on a nightcrawler but I couldn't tell what variety it was. It looked like a green sunfish, but I can't find anywhere that mentions green sunfish in the river or in Cachuma further downstream. Anyone have any idea what type of sunfish are in there (besides smallmouth bass)? I fished this river many times in my life and have never had anyone give me a definite answer. It isn't a bluegill or redear as it has a slightly elongated body and is paler than a bluegill. All fish came on either a silver castmaster or cut nightcrawlers. The nightcrawlers worked really well but the trout really inhaled those things and two of em were gill hooked. I kept those two for dinner last night, for farm fish they were pretty tasty. :9 The contents of the stomachs was interesting... on of them had almost no discernable material, while the other one was absolutely stuffed full of black pond snails. I had no idea that trout ate those little black 'pond' snails. I took a picture of it and will post, but I left it at home. Has anyone else seen this in a trouts stomach before? All in all a really fun day on a really pretty little river just 20 minutes from home. I was hoping for some smallmouth bass, but maybe next trip. I will try to post some pics later.

Rock Bass

It is a Green Sunfish. Red Rock area has tons of those spunky fighters. You can even find them in farm ponds and drainage systems in Santa Maria.

That is what I thought too. Funny you don't see them show up in Cachuma! For their size they fight very well. I have caught them up there for many many years and never really hear anything about them. Fun to catch tho on really light tackle, they are stout little fighters. It is amazing the population comes back every year as that river usually runs pretty dry during droughts. They must survive in the smallest of pools and repopulate every wet season. Pretty cool.

Yeah, they are great on light tackle and they will hit any type of lures. Mean little guys. They are really hardy and will survive in the smallest amount of water. I have caught one at Lopez Lake before, but only one.

You are very fortunate to have caught a number of 10 to 12" trout at SYR, and to have fished there before the heat wave. I did not think that DFG planted them that large there, and the trout that I have seen there are cookie-cutter smaller planter types. An oldtimer tells me that there are some native trout of that larger size in the SYR that sometimes come out of Gibraltar, but his experience is that you have to be very stealthy to catch these natives. Good job! Where were you fishing? Supposely the native trout are in pools close to Gibraltar. I am fairly new to the area and have a lot to learn, including how to avoid those green sunfish while smallie fishing there with small crawdad/cricket type Rapalas.
Bob

I think I got lucky in finding those fish. I saw lots and lots of smaller trout in some of the pools... and even hooked a few of them but they were so small... These bigger fish were almost all definetly stocked trout as they had the slightly deformed, rounded tails so common in stocked trout. The one 12 incher I got looked by far the healthiest of the bunch and I even considered that it could have been a native... I put that one back a little more carefully then the rest. There is something special about catching native fish. I was really hoping to find some smallies up there but didn't get even one... What is your technique to catch them up there? You mentioned rapalas... any other tips / locations up there? Also, those lil green sunfish are pretty fun to catch and fight like a bulldog... I enjoy catching the larger ones when you can find them.

Last summer the river was so dry that my son and I hiked up to the second from last pool below Gibraltar to look for deeper pools. The pool just below Gibraltar is closed to fishing. We only caught one smallie per pool (all shorts) and many sunfish as we worked our way back downriver. The previous year we went to the SYR only once and caught one legal smallie in a very rocky shaley pool very steep terrain) about 1/4 mile down stream of the first parking lot. Lots of trout took our roostertails, panther martins, kastmasters etc. in the pool (flatter terrain) just above that rocky shaley one.

Where exactly did you get your larger trout?


Bob