Yesterday I decided to give the Forebay another shot after hearing some promising reports from Lee Haskins and Vaughn. Sure, most of the chatter was about the “fun-sized” fish, but sprinkled in were those dangerous rumors of the occasional big one. Last week Wayman pulled an 8-pounder, and Lee stuck a couple of 28-inchers on topwater. That’s all it takes to get me out there—one story about a big fish, and suddenly I’m packing sandwiches and charging batteries like I’m prepping for D-Day.

The last outing wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. I got a flat on the trailer and shredded a belt on the trolling motor in one go—a real double feature. So this trip was part fishing, part field test. Luckily, everything held together. Whenever I get a flat, I replace both tires because I like them to suffer equally.

The weather? Perfect. Not a breath of wind. The only thing missing was life—no birds, no bait balls, and not a single sign of those chunky threadfin shad that usually start showing up this time of year. The fish I did keep had only one lonely smelt in their bellies, and even the “bigger” ones looked like they’d been skipping meals.

I started scanning deep water from the channel to Check 12—Vaughn’s honey hole from last week—and found my best concentrations near the powerhouse rock wall. That drop-off hits about 30 feet, the deepest part of the Forebay, and it’s basically a fish parking lot. Before 11 a.m., I’d landed a dozen in the 12-17-inch range on the Bad Ass Glass 7-weight. The hits weren’t exactly violent, though. With Livescope, I could literally watch fish follow my fly for ages without committing—kind of like a guy staring at the dessert menu when he’s already full.

I experimented and found the best way to trigger a strike was to strip the fly away a couple times, then let it sit like a wounded minnow having second thoughts about life. When stripers are hot, they’ll chase a fly from six feet out. Yesterday, they wouldn’t even blink unless it wandered within three feet—and slowly. Maybe it’s the cooler water, maybe it’s just November apathy. Lee said they were on topwater in the evenings, so maybe they just prefer dinner over brunch.

I fished the Tire Pile and Check 12 channel for another couple dozen fish while watching the Oregon–Iowa game on my iPad. Great game! I swear my strip rhythm improves during 4th-down plays. The Ducks pulled off a last-minute win and kept their playoff hopes alive. I’d like to think my “fan energy” helped.

After the game, I explored Mederious—nothing. Checked the Highway Channel—still nothing, unless you count the float-tubers spread across the flats like rubber duckies at a carnival. Even the trench was empty. To wrap up the day, I returned to the powerhouse where it all began. Still no current, still big schools, still catching a few more before the sunset over the dam told me it was time to go.

All in all, a beautiful, calm day of fishing—no disasters, no hero shots, just a perfect excuse to say, “Yeah, I tested the repairs,” and “Go Ducks.”

Lee does a float tube clinic at the Forebay every year and yesterday there werer dozens of float tubes out on the forebay.  I even spotted Ken Oda and Mark Won out there.  I had to be carefull not to kill any of them in my boat and negotiated the foreaby most of the day like a slalom course.   It was a nice day on the forebay catching dinks on light rods and getting a limit of keepers to eat.    But despite the numbers in the forebay,  Im headed to the lake next time to look for the big ones.

I leave for Wildhorse tuesday ater work.    Going to try to make it to Winemucca by midnight and then up to Wildhorse in the morning after sleeping at the Battle Mountain Mavrick truck stiop.   Stay tuned