Saturday February 18, 2023  – Today I got One Hit and Im Wondering where all the fish are.     After last weeks skunk on the Forebay,  I decided to torture myself again on the Big Lake and hopefully get better odds in the clearer water.   The Forebay is still extremely turbid.   When the fishing  gets slow like this in February,  Its hard to concentrate on each cast expecting a grab and today was no exception.   The weather was perfect for February but the water was still cold at 48 degrees.

I headed directly for the Racks in the Morning and was all alone for a couple hours there.   I went all around the Racks with the Livescope looking for a target and I have never seen the Trash Racks so devoid of fish in my life.    The pumps were not running either.  I keep hearing that the pumps were raising the lake a foot a day and its 50 feet from full  but I didn’t see that today.  Perhaps they changed the definition of “full”  at the lake during construction.   Plus the lake is about 100 feet bellow full (2018 full) and none of the tree lines around the lake are in the water yet.   I would say another 50 feet and we will be able to fish in the wood again.  Not since 2018 have those trees seen the lake but I remember tons of fish and bait around them when they are in the water.

I fished the Cottonwood Wall  on the Grate which feeds water under the freeway.   When the water is rising or dropping,  there is. concentration of current there that alway attracts fish.    I found the grate and there were no fish around it at all.

I scanned the shorelines with the binoculars and noticed lots of birds in Portugese Cove.   I ran over there and checked out Loan Oak Bay with the sonar and again it was empty.    I decided to go check out the Rock Pile on the way to the dock and couldn’t find more than two fish together anywhere on the lake.

The one fish I did get was fishing the Dam rocks right at the corner of the Bay of Pigs.   The bay of pigs is still not filled.  The water needs to go up another 25-50 feet.   There was plenty of brush and tree limbs in the water there to attract bait and normally fishing BOP is productive.  The fish just don’t seem to be looking for minnows in the shallow cover.    The one fish I caught was 23 inches long but really skinny.   Autopsy showed that the only thing it was eating was tiny grass shrimp.   It was stuffed with them and there were no minnows at all in its stomach contents.    I didn’t see any minnows in the shallows or at the launch.    I think maybe the fish are hibernating and waiting for the minnows to develop before they move into the shallows.  The trollers I talked to at the launch caught a few trolling 80-100 feet in the middle of the lake – no mans land for Fly Fishermen.

I think Ill try the Forebay again perhaps tomorrow.   Ide rather see fiish and not catch them than stare at a blank sonar all day and hope Im wrong.