Saturday Dec 4, 2021 – I’m getting a feeling that nobody really knows what makes stripers in the Oneill Forebay eat. This year has been a strange Striper year all around. There are many who are saying that its one of the worst seasons on record. Many of the San Luis regulars in November…
Monday – November 22, 2021 Fly Fishing reports from forebay this week have been bleak. The moon was full last night and I had a feeling it would be a tough day. It will be two weeks before I’ll be able to fish the Forebay again and I decided to go out anyways and test…
November 4, 2021 – It was best not to expect too much today especially when I crested Pacheco Pass on a sunny morning only to find a thick fog bank hanging over the forebay all day. The Wind Line is broken and has been registering Zero Miles and hour for the last weeks. The…
Monday November 4, 2021 – Every time I decide to fish the Forebay, there is a split second while driving over the pass, when I get that first view of the East side of the lake of Romero to the Bay of Pigs, that there is an urge to blow off the forebay and head…
October 31, 2021 – The forebay sure looked different to me than three weeks ago. The pattern has definitely changed. The weedlines are gone, the first storms of the year have gone through making the water muddy. the DWR is pumping water into the lake which has lowered the Forebay three feet since I last…
Sunday October 10, 2021 After taking my dear friend Jerry out last week for a shutout, I felt like the Giants after losing to Dodgers. I needed a win and I was determined to get Jerry on some Stripers even after scouting the forebay yesterday with mixed results. I also knew that the “A” team …
Saturday Oct 8, 2021 – My high expectations for today was met with a minimum wage day. I landed 22 but it was tough fishing today. I found the big schools in the middle again but they were tough to stay on. I got three on the wall in the morning during the solonar…
Monday October 4, 2021 I set out fishing this morning with low expectations. Two days ago, I had high expectations taking Jerry out for the first time. I don’t like taking people out unless I have high expectations especially with friends that don’t fish every week. I’m use to bad days but when I take…
Friday October 1, 2021 – I was really hoping that my first invitation to Jerry on the forebay would be epic. But wishing and having arent the same when it comes to fishing. I waited till Steph finished his scouting trip on the main lake today before writing this report , hoping to go…
September 27,2021 -Yesterday, Steph and Vaughn had a good day on the Forebay. Steph was very persuasive after describing his luck in the open water using his “grid” search but today I couldn’t find a fish in deep water that would bite. I did see lots of bait and other fish. There must be American…
September 24, 2021 – Something is in the water in the Forebay. I have never seen the fish from the forebay all consistently fat and healthy as they were today. This unusual trend has to be from a change in the food chain in the forebay. All the regular food sources are present. Delta Smelt,…
Sep 7 – 15 2021. The Silver Lining to this whole crappy year was putting hundreds of Silver Salmon on the line this week. It’s been a long two years that I have been longing to return to the Sapuck River in the Aleutian Islands for Coho Salmon. The Sapsuck Camp is my favorite…
Friday Sept 4, 2021 – I needed one more day on the water to tune my spey rod for my Alaska trip next week t minus three days and counting. Glen Chenn emailed us that there is a spike in Covid in Alaska and our entire group of Seniors is getting a bit nervous. No…
Saturday August 28, 2021 – Mother Nature threw some hurdles at me today trying to get me to not fish , The temps were predicted to be 105 degrees from noon to 4:00 and I was a bit worried that the Smoke from the Northern California Fires might waft into the valley and close the…
Monday August 9, 2021 Today was suppose to be the calmest day of my four day weekend but it turned out to be the most windy. The yellow light was on all day. I was really looking forward to fishing some calm water with a shot at some topwater but as soon as I crested…
Friday Aug 6, 2021 Vaughn and I figure we’ve been fishing buddies for about ten years now. Yet today was the first time we fished in my boat together. A couple weeks ago we fished with Bryce Tedford together and it seemed like we had fished together for year him in the front and I…
After fishing the Forebay for many years, I basically forgot how many skills you must master to catch a Striped Bass on a fly . It starts with fly casting. Len Bearden’s memorable quote was ” Meng. you are only as good a fisherman as you cast…”. To Fly Fish for Stripers, you must learn…
I was beginning to think I was jinkxed with the weather at O’neill Forebay. For the last two weeks I’ve been trying to get out every day that I have been off work. Unfortunately, I’m about 50 percent these last two weeks when it comes to actually making the ride due to inaccurate wind…
July 25, 2021 – I receive many emails and texts asking what fly Im using in the Forebay and in the Lake. The truth is that I dont really have more than 6 flies in any style that are identical. One of the aspects of fishing the forebay and lake as my “home” waters is…
Friday July 23, 2021 – Today I scouted the Main Lake and Forebay. This year’s drought has already drawn the lake down to nearly 40 percent capacity. I haven’t seen it this low since the great drought. When the water gets low like this, sometimes you can catch some really big fish off the shoreline. …
Monday July 19, 2021 – Vaughn and I had the pleasure of being guided by Bryce Tedford on the Delta for some Topwater LMB Action. In all the years that I’ve known Vaughn, this is the first time we actually shared a boat. Having been heavily outfished by Vaughn , it will probably be the…
Sunday July 18, 2021 – There is nothing quite as satisfying as fishing with your dog or in this case fishing with your kids dog. Kimmie and I spent a nice day on the forebay . Some rare cloud cover and heat helped keep the winds down till 3:30. We had a window of calm…
Wednesday July 15 2012 -It wasn’t till 11:00 today when I decided to go and fish the forebay again. The last two opportunities paid off big and the odds seemed in my favor today. Last night I checked the wind to see if the pattern had changed and to my suprise, the winds were…
MONDAY July 12, 2021 – I have the week off. This week I was supposed to be in Cuba fly fishing the Jardines de la Reina but because of COVID, the airlines cancelled flights to Havana. It looks like we dodged a bullet since today (the day we were to land in Havana) thousands of…
FRIDAY July 9, 2021 -The Wind basically wipe the month of June off my fishing diary with high winds and ambiguous wind predictions. The best fishing of the month was when I challenged the wind predictions and won. Today was one of those days. The wind predictions have consistently predicted a small windows of…
