Fifty Shades of Linesides

Sunday at Oneill Forebay was incredible. Jim Cramer came along for the action and Vaughn Willet was out on the lake also enjoying the perfect weather–light breeze all day, sun and 63 degree water plus 4 stars on the Solonar table with peaks at 9 am and 3 pm. With the first day of Daylight Savings time, I forced my self to go to bed at 10pm and getting up at 6am still felt like 5am. Jim and I got on the lake at 7 to watch the sunrise and immediately got into them around the islands. In an hour we already had 15 to the boat with the biggest fish 22 inches a fat 8 pounds. We hit the flats and the wall also and picked fish up everywhere we stopped. Things slowed down from noon to about 1 pm when I decided to try the deep water again on the way out. Thats where we bumped into Vaughn in his classic bass boat. Between him and I searching and scanning with our fish finders, we cornered a large school of stripers and had our way with them for three hours. When the school would move off one boat, the other boat would find them and it bounced back and forth. At times we were casting right beneath each others transducers and hooking fish!. Between Vaughn, Jim and I we hooked over 70 fish with the largest being 24 inches and most being over 18 except in the flats where they averaged smaller.

The fly of the day was small size 1 yellow clouser tied with aluminum eyes and bucktail (and a pulse disk). I like pulse discs because they give you tactile feedback on line tightness. I was trying to help Jim feel his strips more. Any slack in the line or if the strip isn’t hard enough, you don’t feel the pulsing. Plus I did notice that the fly moves better on the sink with a pulse disk. There were no issues with short strikes and missed fish from the plastic. Also I think the aluminum eyes suspend better because they are lighter, and we were getting many fish on the long pause. It would have been a perfect day had it not been for a lame mistake on my part which resulted in a broken port boat windshield. I must have hit the windshield with the bead eyes of my clouser in just the right spot while sitting down and casting a T-14. Too bad its not as strong as my One Piece Helios 2. Fortunately, I found a company that will build me a plastic one. I hope it comes soon. In any event, I’m not going to let some glass keep me from returning next week.

The Min Kota Ulterra is due to arrive this week also. Im looking forward to the new IPilot ILINK stuff that is supposed to be improved also.

Saturday would have been a good day to fish San Luis but I spent the day moving my Motorhome out of Sugerbarge Site 21 into long term storage there. The storage arrangement is a good deal since I can spend a weekend and tow the boat up this summer and the MOHO is there when I arrive, I can keep the boat in the water for the weekend for 20 bucks a day. Also I get a 10% discount on camp sites this summer. Ill probably move it back to site 21 in the fall around NOV and leave it there till December. While I was breaking down the camp, I made friends with Stanely Fernandez who is the local chef for the Sugerbarge Restaurant. I decided to let him use my Profire BBQ instead of storing it with the motorhome. The water looks pretty muddy in Franks Track still. The water in the Forebay is much clearer. With the forebay and SL fishing so well, these last months, its actually easier for me to manage the boat at home where its nice and secure in my garage. All I have to do is find those 20 lbrs in the lake and forebay and catch them with regularity and the ZEN will be complete.