Wednesday December 4, 2024

The mission for the day was simple in theory: catch one keeper for dinner. But in reality? A gamble, a twisted roll of the dice. December fishing is a schizophrenic beast—either the jackpot of blitzing action or a cruel exercise in futility. Vaughn and his merry band of misfits had taken a beating on Sunday, trudging back empty-handed, faces long and spirits beaten. Not exactly the kind of omen that inspires confidence.

I did what any sane man would do: dug into the archives. Old fishing reports from this blog and Roger George’s Fresno Bee fishing report painted a fragmented map of hope. Armed with this patchwork intel and a big thermos of caffeine, I set my sights on the big lake with a singular, almost primal objective—bring home a fish. Not just any fish, but a dinner fish. The pressure wasn’t about sustenance; my family wasn’t starving. This was about proving something to myself, like a degenerate gambler eyeing a longshot on a rigged track. It’s not the money, it’s the principle. The emotional hedge—like when my son and I bet against our favorite teams to soften the sting of another soul-crushing underdog miracle.

By 9:00 a.m., I was launching at Dinosaur Point, already down $80 from topping off the gas tank in the boat. Half a tank! Inflation was hitting harder than a stray cast in the wind. As I launched, I caught sight of birds and fish working the surface right off the dock. Pure adrenaline. This was it, the blitz I’d been waiting for. I chased it like a man possessed, livescope pinging with promise. Trolling through the biomass of bait I spied on the scope.   The screen lit up with massive schools of baitfish—fat, squirming clouds of potential—but no predators. Nada. It was like finding a Vegas buffet with no customers. Strange, unsettling.

I debated hauling ass to Portuguese Bay to chase phantom blitzes but opted for a more calculated approach. The dam. Always the dam. Trolling a pair of white marabou clousers on a full sinking line, I first worked the edges of the Bay of Pigs like a blackjack player doubling down on 12. Nothing. Livescope scanning 100 feet in every direction revealed no big schools, just the eerie emptiness of water deeper than 40 feet. A ghost town.

I switched tactics—slow-fished a rust-colored clouser off the dam, targeting the rocks with sniper precision. Water temp held steady at 57 degrees, but the dam didn’t cough up so much as a nibble. From Dave’s Rock to Guardrail, it was radio silence. Time to regroup. The Trash Racks were calling, a desperate pivot to salvage something from the day.

The racks were a scene out of a low-budget horror film— empty, dark, and haunting. I scanned with the livescope, working every inch of the water column down to the bottom. Most of the fish clustered deep on the north tower, between 50 and 70 feet, just as Roger George had predicted in his last report. But on the north tower under the causeway, I found hope.  Branches of the  schools of fish hugged the wall at 40 feet, shallow enough to target.

I cast a fly right up against the wall, letting it sink for a full 90 seconds, watching it drop on the scope like a guided missile to the shallowest volunteers in the deep schools. The technique was absurdly simple—strip the fly straight up, fast and erratic, with sharp pulls and long pauses as  ckose to the wall as possible.   And wouldn’t you know it, the bastards couldn’t resist. Ten fish, all in the same stretch, falling for the same trick. It must’ve been some primal instinct—a desperate minnow rocketing straight to the surface, triggering a predatory switch.

Vertical jigging, they call it. I call it survival. Dinner was served, and the longshot had hit.

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