First Stripers of 2013

 

 

Finally a free day to get out to the lake after a cold and rainy weather pattern in the Bay area for the last several weeks.   I havent done well in January in the past and the reports from the Delta and the lake have been pretty bad the last few weeks.  The lake was muddy but the water was 49 degrees which is pretty warm for now.  The  lake is filling up fast and I am going to start fishing it again soon.  Meanwhile,  the forebay, now devoid of surface weeds,  was muddy and flowing out of the lake.  The floats at the Dam and  at the Mederois launch indicated an outward flow from the lake. Wierd that the lake is filling so fast and yet they are pumping out of the dam.

It was a pretty good day surprisingly.  I caught 18 fish with 6 above 18 inches.  They were not in the open water but where there was moving water in the trenches and at the outlet.  I fished “the wall” and changed up my retrieve–casting to the bank and stripping in about three feet,  then letting it tick the bottom with slow pulls, scraping the bottom with long pauses. I had fish hit the fly during long pauses.    I used smaller marabou flies with rattles to get more action from the slower retrieve. The larger chartreuse flash tails were not as productive as I did try them thinking they would be more visible in the muddy water.

At the ramp, a couple bass fishermen showed me a 4 lb largemouth they caught at the other end of the forebay using lucky strike lures.   They said they caught 15 LMBs that way.   Interesting.

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