Sunday – July 13, 2025

I’ve been glued to Windfinder like a teenage boy on TikTok since getting back from Montana, waiting for any sign of a calm day on San Luis. Today, finally, the stars aligned—well, sort of. Windfinder optimistically forecasted a “light breeze” of 5 to 8 mph from 9 AM to 3 PM. Naturally, when I arrived at 8:30, the lake looked like the Bering Sea during crab season—yellow lights flashing all around, and a nice spread of 2-foot whitecaps just to let me know who’s boss.

Still, 16 boats had already launched. Safety in numbers, right? I figured if we all drowned together, at least someone might write a country song about us. Among the brave was Nate and his fishing buddy Vaughn, waiting out the blow in Nate’s 2019 Crestliner. I met Nate five years ago when he’d just bought that boat. The thing still looks showroom fresh. I’ve seen rental tuxedos with more wear. Turns out Nate’s about the same age as my son, has two young kids, lives in Watsonville, and gets out fishing pretty regularly. Talking to him made me nostalgic for the days when I was dragging my own kids on camping trips and bribing them with s’mores to touch fish.

It’s been a while since I fished the main lake, but some things never change—like the regulations that make sense to absolutely no one. Because I fished the Forebay, I had to wait eight whole days before being allowed to fish San Luis. You’d think I was trying to enter a classified government facility. Meanwhile, DWR was pumping water into the lake today, creating a big upwelling in front of the racks that looked promising—but the fish were apparently off doing other things, like hiding in 60 feet of water and laughing at my flies.

I started on the west side, shielded from the wind and waitng for the wind to die.  When it’s hot in the valley, that lake becomes a wind tunnel, and the fog over the pass is like a “Nope” sign from nature. I didn’t meter a single fish over there. Not a blip. The Livescope was emptier than my fridge after a weekend with the grandkids. No baitfish meant no action, so I headed to the Bay of Pigs to check some mudlines and the flats. Still nothing. This was shaping up to be a very expensive boat ride.

But I had a hunch. Last year around this time, when the baitfish were also MIA, I found that the bigger fish were cruising slow and deep along the dam rocks, picking off unlucky sunfish and lazy crawdads. So, I crept along the dam with a fast – sinking line and a patience level I usually reserve for waiting on a Costco gas pump. First cast near the BOP, boom—chunky 20-incher. Naturally, I did what any curious fly fisherman would do: opened him up for a gut check.

To my surprise, no crawdads. Instead, a belly full of two-inch freshwater shrimp. At first glance I thought, “Well damn, these look like baby craws.” But fish number two confirmed the truth: the stripers were gorging on opossum shrimp—aka Mysis shrimp—the little algae-munching critters that hang out in the shallows.

That changed the game.

I dialed in the shrimp pattern and started slow-crawling it along the rocks from the BOP to the Guardrail.  I think the challenge was to strip the fly  while allowing it to sink while it was moving.    The heavier the line,   the more you can strip without “planing the line”.  Essentially strip so the fly is always sinking which means snagging and touching bottom occasionally.    Keeping the trolling motor running very slowly also helps keep the line off the bottom on every cast  as well.   Seven fish on the first pass alone. My go-to method: cast to the rocks, two-foot strip, two-second pause, strip again, three-second pause, and step the fly down the slope like I’m teaching it to waltz. As I’ve told Tony Yap a dozen times, if you’re not getting snagged occasionally, you’re just not fishing deep enough.

Fishing stayed steady through multiple passes along the dam. Each drift picked off another half dozen fish. At 1 PM, I swung by the Racks and scanned the whole thing with the Livescope—there were fish down there, but mostly 40+ feet deep, and I wasn’t in the mood to dredge – n50 second countdown at least.    Instead, I gave the north dam a try near Monument and picked up another six fish. One of them puked shrimp all over my stripping basket. Kind of gross. Kind of informative.

So what did I learn? First, trust your gut—and your shrimp when there is no baitfish to be seen.    Second, Windfinder lies. And third, there’s nothing like reconnecting with the lake, the fish, and a few good people who make you remember why you started doing this crazy hobby in the first place.

Next time, I’m bringing cocktail sauce.