Just a week ago I was fishing forebay in rain and wind shivering. I finally got out last Monday after 2 days of monitoring gale force winds as the low pressure moved in for a freaky June rainstorm last week. We got to the Lake and it was too scary to launch blowing 15 from the NE. The Basalt Launch ramp looked precariously muddy although I didn’t think it would be difficult to launch and load since the dock was in the right place but there were two foot rolling whitecaps between me and the Trash Racks and the water was so low, there were islands I have never seen before. So, we decided to fish the Forebay. We caught two undersized fish all day and called the game due to rain returning home at noon–a very uneventful day.

Today was just the opposite weather wise. At 5:00 am it was already 85 degrees but the wind was still around 15 mph. I iced down the Yetti Cooler and filled it with frozen waters just in case. I also put a swimsuit on incase I needed to jump in to cool off. Our intentions were to try to fish the main lake and check out the low water conditions — concentrated fish and a banner day hopefully. Unfortunately, the fishing was pretty slow. We fished the regular places, Bay of Pigs, Portuguese Bay (what was left of it), Romero and the Trash Racks. We also trolled plugs and flies around the the shoreline for hours. We vertical jigged a few deep holes in the middle of the lake with a Gold 1oz Hopkins lure. The best spot was again, the trash racks which are now almost completely out of the water. I don’t think they are going to be able to lower the lake more than it is now unless the pumps go all the way down to the bottom of the lake. From the picture,it looks like the pumps are out of the water. The fish must be pretty confused. THere is no cover at all around the shoreline and many of the bays and flats are gone. The only shoreline that is exposed has been under deep water for years and looks sterile as all heck. I kept scanning the shoreline for gear and sunken boats and such looking up at the higher water marks in disbelief that last year we caught tons of big fish on the shoreline that is now 200 yards up the bank. I looked up a metal detector reviews guide online since I was thinking a metal detector would be fun along the shorelines of the popular fishing areas. I briefly realized that every fly I have ever lost on a snag in the lake is above water right now!

The Basalt ramp has been relocated to a road that has been exposed! There is a road to the left at the bottom of the regular ramp that goes to a dock. The ramp is pretty steep but the mud isn’t too bad. There were 6 boat trailers, some bigger than my 18 footer, parked. We got two stripers all day casting flies at the trash racks. They were in 20 feet of water a nine iron south of the racks. We metered alot of fish but had a tough time getting them to eat–Im sure some of them were schools of Shad. We didn’t see any schools of shad along the shorelines when the wind died down around 1:00. We switched flies all day and caught both Stripers on 3 inch brown over blue closers lightly weighted. Nothing hit the trolled flies all day.