Friday July 23, 2021 – Today I scouted the Main Lake and Forebay.   This year’s drought has already drawn the lake down to nearly 40 percent capacity.   I haven’t seen it this low since the great drought.  When the water gets low like this,  sometimes you can catch some really big fish off the shoreline.     I went hunting for a big one in the lake but ended up with only two  better than average fish.    The  ramp at Basalt is as low as the main ramp can go.   I talked to the ranger about it who was there with a tractor.   The tractor was preparing the road ramp.  The park staff is planning on moving the ramp  tomorrow morning.  They also told me they were still pumping water out of the reservoir.    I thought they would have learned their lesson last time and not let the water get down below 50%.   The algae is growing thick and I think it could muck up the pipes.   The two stripers I caught in the Lake were lethargic probably because the oxygen levels in the Lake are getting low from the heat and the algae. I searched the exposed islands,  the bay of pigs,   Romero and every inch of the trash racks for a small school of stripers and could not find them.   The two fish I did catch was blind casting the dam near guardrail.  I think the fish are on the bottom,  I did spy some pretty big fish at 70-80 feet below the trash racks with the Panoptix.

Dan Blanton and  Vaughn Willet were fishing the forebay today.    By noon,  they had around 20 fish to my 2 and I decided to head over there to save the day and catch some fish.    The wind started to pick up around 2:00 when I decided to head over.   I decided to go fish the wall again despite the wind coming up.   By the time I got to the wall and started to fish.  The wind was blowing 17 mph  and I decided to drift parallel to the wall  and fish the weed line.    Most of the action however was not on the weed line but directly downwind from me about 30 feet from weedline.  Because the wind blows down the wall,  my strategy to fish the wall is to post upwind with the Spot Lock and cast to the weeds.,   As it sinks and drifts downwind I retrieve it as it swings behind the boat.   Fishing from 2:30 -4:00  I  caught  8 on the wall with a couple nice ones.   The wind seems to ramp up around 3:30 and today was no different.    I decided to start making my way back to the dock around 4:00 and headed directly into the wind to the dock at 10 mph with a my Life vest on and my cut off attached.     The  17 mph was creating a 2 foot chop on the water that made speed out of the question for me.  It got calmer as I reached the dock and I thought the wind just died  but checking the rock wall with binoculars,  I could see a line of whitecaps starting around the middle of the forebay.   I looks calm from the dock but its not.   Dan and Vaughn left around 2:30 and got around 20 for the day.