Sunday March 8, 2020 The rains have returned leaving only one day this weekend without wind and rain. I thought last week I would be in Disneyland with family, but travel planes were postponed because of the ‘rona’ and I decided to “self quarantine” myself to the middle of San Luis Reservoir. Also I decided to build a custom mount for the Panoptix Livescan and try out the new ‘Perspective” mode. Because last night was the Daylight Saving change, I went to bed late losing an an hour of sleep and arrived at the lake “late”. At the Basalt launch, there must have been a dozen boats already in the water at 8:00 am.
I headed over to the racks first thing in the morning hoping to find the schools that were there last week. The schools had moved off the racks into the deep water in front and were moving up and down the water column from 80-60 feet. The downrigger trollers were getting some as well as some of the bait fisherman. Even counting down over 60 seconds, I couldn’t get a fish to bite at the racks. Not one. I decided to carefully fish the dam from the Racks to Monument in shallow water. When fish are around and not feeding, It sometimes means that there is no bait to chase. Sometimes hungry fish go to the dam and look for minnows and gobbies in the rocks. If there is a hungry fish around, they are often found right off the dam. After a lot of moving and casting, I managed three between the Racks and Romero and 3 more from Daves Rock to Guardrail. the fish were mostly close to shore, all were nice strong fish . It was a tough day but I like these cloudy days with no wind. The lake was beautiful today with the clouds and filtered sun. Maybe the fish were messed up with the time change as I was. I fished a t-14 with a craft fur clouser and #4 pulse disc.
I played with the Livescope. I was not that impressed with the Perspective mode . The Humminbird 360 seems to do a better job. Last night I updated the firmware on the both the Panoptix livescope and the Sonar. The appearance on the screen seems a bit different. I need to work with the sonar more to figure out how to tweak the image.
Excellent photos!
Hey, I expected to see you out on the reservoir self isolating!
I hope you and your family are doing ok! I better see some more cool updates on your boats. I’ve been researching your rv Antenna for my application.
Ed,
Its been three years this September since we had that crazy great day at the racks. The fishing certainly can change quickly at the lake. I think the fish were still pretty chubby and they were in great shape (camera angles maybe). The biggest difference from last week was the water temp dropping 4 degrees and the moon phase. I think as the water warms again this week, it will again. Ill be getting reports on Thursday for the weekend.
https://mengsyn.com/2017/09/03/the-best-day-of-the-year-on-the-lake/
I think its time to tempt fate and go out there together again. Let me know when you are ready to try it again.
Meng
Looks like most of the fish you picked up this weekend have now spawned – much skinnier than those you found near the trash racks a week ago. Spawning activity generally runs for a few weeks, but this is still pretty early for the annual event and it would be a little surprising if it is all done for the season. Since you are seeing the fish returning to deeper water, they could either be done or taking a break waiting for the next favorable moon phase.