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.”
Its been weeks since I fished and I couldn’t have picked a better day to start off 2016. The temps were in the mid 70’s and the water temp was 52 degrees. The reports from the lake have been slow but today the solonar tables were peak and the crowds were light. Maybe its…
When it’s not always raining there’ll be days like this When there’s no one complaining there’ll be days like this When everything falls into place like the flick of a switch Well, my mama told me, “There’ll be days like this” The fishing gods are fair. After giving me three of the biggest fish Ive…
I almost went fishing this morning but this week at the office was brutal after the Thansgiving holiday and I was pretty tired Saturday Morning after a long week and cutting down two christmas trees the day before. I decided to drive up to the Menlo Park VA and visit Nick my father in law with…
The Red Lights over San Luis Reservoir this afternoon signaled the end of a three trip streak of 20lb Plus fish. The day started out promising, with a good solonar peak around 9:45am. Ken Oda in his tube and I in my boat, pounded the Bay of Pigs but came up porkless. …
Friday November 21, 2015 – I took a day off of work to fish the Lake this morning. It was incredibly beautiful today with nearly perfect weather conditions. How lucky I am to live near this fabulous fishing opportunity that is only an hour from where I live. Two days ago, Steph and I were about…
I get a little bit nervous when too many things go my way. I got pretty lucky today at the lake and landed a second fish over 2o lbs in two weeks. The euphoria over last weeks fish had me on the fly tying bench last week tying up all sorts of giant flies flies.…
Today was a memorable day at San Luis reservoir for me. After years of pounding the lake with flies, I finally beat the 20 lb mark with a big striper from the Bay of Pigs. The day started off pretty slow as it had last week. I decided to only cast 7 inch flies. The…
My friend Ken Oda fished San Luis last week on Saturday the day before my last report. He observed some interesting striper behavior in the Bay of Pigs. Getting on the water at 7:30 am he saw birds working midges but later that morning around 11:00am, shad and stripers started midging in the shallows. Fish…
I was dreaming of that 40 lbr that Captain Santucci caught on San Luis Reservoir a couple weeks ago. His words resonate in my dreams “now is the time to fish San Luis before it fills” if you want a giant fish. Armed with HUGE flies, a T-18 shooting head on a 9 wgt, I…
I haven’t fished the main lake in a year, Ive been avoiding it because I don’t recognize it now that its down to about 17 percent full. Full of hope and memories of phenomenal October Days in the past, I woke up at 5:00 and got on the lake before sunup hoping for a topwater…
I was really hoping to fish the big lake today if the wind and the boat ramps were doable, but it was not to be. At 5:00am the winds were near 20mph and with each hour, it seemed as if it were escalating. At 7:00 the wind shifted and dropped to near zero. I…
Many factors come to play when designing the perfect fly for a destination, the most obvious being what the endemic baitfish look like and what are the fish keying in on. In designing a fly for San Luis, the obvious bait fish to copy is the two to three inch long delta or wakasagi smelt. There are…
So is there truth to the idea that a full moon is bad for fishing? Some great fishermen believe that the days around the full moon are sometimes good, but most believe the days of a full moon mean that the fish feed all night and don’t bite during the day. Personally, I think that…
Steph and I had an interesting day at O’Neill Forebay today. Every year it seems, there is day in the year when I stumble into the nursery and today was the day. The day started out early at 6:30 when I arrived at the gate and found nobody at the ranger station. The…
After a marathon two days at Disneyland with Gina, I managed to get up this morning at 5 AM to give O’Neill Forebay a ride on Labor Day. The winds really laid down all weekend and I couldn’t resist a still morning. I was hoping for some topwater and when I arrived at…
I wasn’t expecting much today, with the full moon last night, but the winds stayed down and the day turned out pretty good. I truly enjoy fishing with Steph and Vaughn and it is more fun when we are in different boats. It’s difficult to fish hard when you are steering the boat for…
I haven’t fished the Forebay for a long time. While I was in Alberta, I started to think that trout pull harder than stripers. I don’t know what came over me. Today, the stripers had something to prove. They were in prime shape and fought as good as I can remember. They treated my eight…
There is a ton of math when it comes to picking trolling motors and batteries for the boat. My Walgreen sdfjsf type 29 batteries are 2 1/2 years old and Im begining to feel like they are getting weak. Iver noticed that my Hummingbird Fishfinder starts to flake at around 11 volts and that occures…
I shouldn’t have tempted fate Saturday morning. Early at the Breakfast table before heading out to the Forebay, my daughter offered me a bannana. I told her how banannas are bad luck for fishermen and when she asked me why, I explained to here about certain amino acids that fish react too that might be…
One thing for sure is that the fish are there and some big ones too, according to the fish finders on three boats. Vaughn , Steph and I hit the Forebay hard today on the first calm day in two weeks I had high expectations for today but between our three boats, only a…