November 11, 2019 – I thought the day might be tough because of the big full moon the night before.  If it would be anything like last week,  I figured I would find a few good fish right off the rocks of the dam.  Today I concentrated my efforts on the dam and fished it methodically from the Bay of Pigs to Romero.  I expected the fish not to be aggressive and as predicted I had lots of short hits with no returns. Note to self- bring trailer hooks next time.   I did notice however that some fish would follow the fly for a long time all the way to the boat and  I caught one right in front of the boat on the  “Delta Dangle” actually hooking the fish on the roll cast to straighten my line.  When they follow like that,  I change flies.   First I go smaller and then I put trailer hooks. The casting platform I built  which raises me a foot above the deck is really helpful blind casting the rocks.   For one,  I can cast further higher up.  Some people have a hard time casing a pulse disc.   The platform takes away the anchor and also extends the rod length another foot with the same effort.     Also,  I can keep the rod in line with a deep sinking fly line without  putting the end of the rod in the water which gives me more of a feel for the fly which came in handy with the short strikes.   I brought a five weight out today with an engineered fast sinking head but I didn’t like the feel of the running fly line.  I felt like I couldn’t keep the line straight enough, or at least as straight as mono.  It also felt sloppy when I was stripping the fly.  Plus, I think heads on mono sink faster because there is less water resistance in the finer diameter mono .  I cant wait to hook a 5 lbr on the 5 weight Helios 3 ten footer.   I think Ill use lighter leaders too just so I don’t get too use to 20lb test landing fish.   I think just fishing for stripers most of the time can put you in a rut.   Habit takes over and you start setting on redfish the same way you set on stripers which is wrong.

I picked up fish all along the dam and in areas where there weren’t points or outcroppings.   I think the fish move along the rock wall in the morning.   I fished slowly and sometimes I would catch  several fish out of the same spot if enough time would go by.   Most of the wall was blank on the Livescope.  The action on the scope was typically under the boat in 20-30 feet of water and not along the edge of the rocks.      I did find a couple big schools of moving  fish along the wall–one in the Bay of Pigs and the other off the island at Romero.   I past years,  I could catch half a dozen fish out of schools like that but today I was lucky to get one or two.  I didn’t downsize  on the flies today,  but I received a box of east coast striper flies from a friend who is into catching schoolie stripers in the Atlantic Ocean.   I was suprised that they use such small patterns for ocean stripers.  I caught a dozen or more fish today but seemed pretty slow.   There were alot of casts and no hits between the catching.  I do think the fish on the face of the dam are running a bit bigger than those in other parts of the lake but it could be my imagination.

Vaughn was out with Tim and dug some up in Lone Oak and Mouse Ears with small craft fur clousers.  At least the weather was perfect.  The lake was like glass.

 

Driving Home on 101, there was a huge accident with lots of emergency responders.   I think it was a chemical tanker that was flipped over on the road.

 

 

 

 

Dan Dee has been catching 6-10 lb stripers in quantity in Arizona  fishing Lake Havasu and Mohave Lake.

Its been 4 Years since my father in law passed away.  He lived to be 100 years old.  He was a distinguished  WWII veteran having earned a Bronze Star, landing on Easy Red, Omaha Beach on D-Day.  When I think about how different my life would be if Nick was killed on Easy Red like the majority of Engineers and Infantry soldiers that landed.  Gina would not have been born and I wouldn’t have my kids.  I sometimes wonder what our country would be like if we had lost WWII.  I am very grateful for the veterans of all our great countries wars.

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