San Luis Reservoir and Oneill Forebay are my home waters. The pages beneath, chronicle my trips to these waters with photography and video over the last years. With the advent of GoPro Cameras and advances in video editing software, I’ve tried to capture the feel of fly fisihng these bodies of waters through the seasons having fished there since the 70’s. As many have pointed out, it seems the fishing was better years ago. As tribute to the great fishermen who loved this body of water who are now gone including my father–I say fish for the moment. There are links in this blog to Len Bearden’s 1991-92 fishing diaries giving me a reference to “the way it was” 25 years ago. Someday these blog post will also be considered the old days so till then – YOLO. I try to fish there weekly when work allows.
“…On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”
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 …
Last Weeks Atmospheric River did a real number on the Lake and Forebay as it did on every river and lake in Northern California. Fishing after the big rains has been challenging for me having done pretty poorly the last couple times out. But there are others that are doing pretty well on the lake. …
One of the nice things about keeping a fishing diary is the ability to go back in time and look at years past at nearly the same day of the year. After having one of the best days I have ever had on the Forebay only a couple weeks ago, I thought that maybe…
Man I was pumped to show Dan the best day in years at the forebay but great makes good feel bad. We launched about the same time as yesterday but the morning was fogged in at 9:00. It was warm and still because of the fog. I headed out slowly to Check 12 and…
Friday Dec 16, 2022 – As I pulled up to the forebay, my phone message lit up. Frank C had texted me in a rare tech moment, to get over to our spot from two weeks ago. There were no birds working the forebay for as far as I could see from the dock. …
Friday Dec 9, 2022. The day almost was cancelled on Wednesday when rain was predicted all day. I wanted to take Dan out again to give him another shot at those video game stripers now that he had the right flies and lines dialed in from last week. The more you fish with someone, the…
Sunday Dec 4,2022 Hoping for a day just like two days ago on the forebay, I jumped on the opportunity to fish when the weather report changed. Another calm west wind day with no rain was predicted for Sunday. The fishing has been good for me these last weeks and Im figuring out how to…
Friday Dec 2, 2022 Some work weeks can’t go by fast enough. All last week seemed like there would not be a weather window to fish this weekend, but on Wednesday a windless rainless day popped up on the prediction and I was all in to get back to those big schools of stripers. I…
The Panoptix Recording are sped up over 1000X speed. I took the video over several hours. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein. November 27, 2022. Sunday. It was insane on the Forebay today, not for the shear numbers of hookups, but for the…
November 25, 2022. Black Friday – I had the honor and pleasure of fishing with one of the legends of flyfishing. I have considered Dan my friend for many years now. since my teenage days at the Millpond Fly shop in Los Gatos. I’m 65 years old now, and very few of that “Greatest Generation” …
Saturday November 19, 2022 – After over 40 years of practicing Dentistry I’ve realized that to be at the top of your game, you need to constantly learn what’s new and surround yourself with excellent people. A good friend told me that you are only as good as your top 5 advisors when it…
Friday November 12 2022. Thanks to Ken Oda, we nailed them today in the Forebay. Even old dogs can learn new tricks and today school was in session for me with Ken Oda on the Forebay. One way to become a better fly fisherman is to fish with guys that are better than you. Surround…
Sunday November 6, 2022. It’s always a bad sign when good fisherman are calling it a day when you are launching. So was the case today this first weekend in November. On top of that was some not so good reports from the week as well. I felt like even if it was…
October 29, 2022. I just can’t seem to have an amazing day in October on the Forebay this year. To say the fishing this October has been wonky would be an understatement. According to Lee Haskin, the key to doing well on the forebay this past month is to fish it an hour after sundown. …
October 21, 2022 Friday – Some days it seems I can’t buy a fish out of the Forebay. I sucked today. Maybe I need to sacrifice something valuable like an Iphone in order to pull a rabbit out of the hat on a really shitty fishing day on the forebay. I had lots of…
October 14 & 16, 2022. My dear friend Dorothy Zinky can still cast a shooting head at 92. We got a rare chance to fish together this past weekend and despite my pessimism about the forebay after last weeks big zero day, we decided to scout around and see if maybe things had…
October 9, 2022 It been years since I’ve seen so many Dinks in the lake. After a couple weeks of not fishing the lake, it seems the water level has not changed much. The Dinosaur Point launch is still very shallow averaging about 10 feet deep most of the way out but at…
September 21 and 22, 2022 – This week Joe Biden proclaimed September 24, 2022 as National Hunting and Fishing Day and he called upon Americans to observe this day with appropriate programs and activities. I’m an American so I complied and headed to the Lake at the crack of dawn . I fished the…
Hoping for a surface action repeat from two days ago, I timed myself to be on the lake when the wind switched hoping to locate those big schools of Surface Stripers in the glassy water. I didn’t see any schools today. I couldn’t “wish them” up as hard as I tried. Lots of…
Friday Jan 8, 2022 It’s always my hope when I set out to fish the lake or forebay to have a unique experience. This morning, I left the house not that optimistic that the day would be good. As I pulled up to the Dinosaur Point ramp, I could see the whitecaps in the bay…