I think it was about 10pm when we launched from the concrete boat launch area last night to go out fishing for Rainbows. While I waited in my boat at the dock for my buddy I introduced myself to two fellas, one of which claimed to have won the last RVTA tournament. Forgot the fella’s name. My work schedule is pretty crazy so it’s nice to meet people I usually only see on paper for tournament results.

Also, thanks to the fella who gave us his leftover live bait. We only caught rock-bass on those medium sized shiners but it was still a nice gesture. Thank you kind sir!

On to the fishing report. The game plan was to fish an are along the southwest shore known as The Pines. First we tried something silly, cause you never know. We headed into ranger cove and fished about 35 minutes catching bass and monster sunfish on live shiners and cooked shrimp then left for The Pines. Here are our exact coordinates where we fished The Pines based on my iPhone Compass+ app 40.605526 -74.823723.

If any of you are regular readers of this blog, you may remember that my Lowrance Sonar is dead. You can see it in the background of these photos sitting there with the cover on it. I may as well have had a picture of a sonar sitting there. By eyeballing distance from shore and known underwater topography I guestimated where I wanted to fish and dropped anchor. My anchor line is marked every ten feet and I was quite happy to hit bottom right at 36′. The night was gorgeous, perhaps 70 degrees at it lowest point but the wind was gusty at times so we pointed the bow into the wind and threw out the second anchor.

Now securely positioned, we turned on my homemade night lights and started chumming with whole kernel corn. We caught our first rainbow about midnight and then when the moon dipped below the “mountain” along the south shore the bite really turned on. A school of rainbows came through around 1am and we picked up some nice fish. a couple two and half pounders and 16incher.

We wanted to keep fishing without limiting out so we switched over to barbless hooks and managed to lose about a dozen or so more rainbows on the way up or at the surface. Hey, easy catch and release!

We wanted one more Rainbow in the boat for a limit so at about 3:30am we successfully netted a 3pound 19 7/8incher. BBQ will be good today!

All in all it was a great night. Beautiful weather, lots of action and nothing broke that wasn’t already broken! If you plan on going out for night rainbows remember a few things.

• Be prepared to get filthy. It’s like night blue-fishing on a Belmar Head boat. You will not find this technique glorified in an Orvis catalog.
• Your terminal tackle consists of number 6 or 8 hook about a foot under a 1/4 ounce egg sinker. Nothing Fancy, it’s dark out, don’t complicate things.
• Your bait is a bag of frozen COOKED shrimp from the grocery store. Get whatever is on sale. Why shrimp? It stays on the hook. Cut pieces to the size of the tip of your pinky finger and bury the hook.
• Your chum is whole kernel corn. I buy three cans of whatever is on sale. Throw it out there liberally and spread it out. Mind which way the current (yes round valley has currents) is moving the corn too and toss “up stream”. EDIT – I have been told that corn is not necessary for chumming and there have been issues with fishermen using cow corn which will kill the fish. If you want to be safe and still chum, use little bits of Velveta Cheese or shrimp. Thanks Andy S. for the education!
• You will need a light or lights to attract baitfish and shrimp to your boat. You can buy lights for a ton of money or make your own easily. Just buy a 55 watt marine or car lamp (like a driving light), mount it to a 3 foot wooden dowel and run enough wire to make it to your battery.
• Do not net any trout you plan on releasing. Trout have a high mortality rate which is a fancy way of saying they stress out and die easy.
• If you are keeping trout, make sure you have lots of ice in your cooler. Bleed the fish out as soon as it’s in the cooler with slice under the gill fins and the meat will stay fresh and delicious.
• To cook these I cut off the head, gut the fish then wrap in aluminum foil with butter and fresh sliced lemon. Put on the grill for about 20 minutes or until the meat flakes off with a fork. You can do this in an oven set to 400 as well.
• ummmm it’s really nice out so I’m going to go play with my kids! If you have any questions ask here or on our Facebook page. Thank again to everyone for reading!

PS. we have a new giveaway starting today. When thinking about trout have you ever wondered; Where are they? Why are they there? What are they eating? How do I recognize what is going on? Be sure to get in on the July giveaway for your chance to win this crazy educational DVD on the underwater world of trout.