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 a long time since I fished the forebay. The last 3 weeks have been spent recovering from eye surgery and I still have some blurry vision. Also, the winds have been brutal this June. The last weekends were un fishable by boat on the weekends due to high winds. In…
It was a wise decision to take the moms out for dinner the Saturday night before Mothers Day. We had a nice dinner with the whole family at Kyoto Palace–the local “Benihana ” style restaurant where the chefs cook at the table and show off there knife and skillet skills. My mom loves that place…
Ive been waiting for weeks for a break in the wind on a day off and I finally got it this morning on San Luis.Reservoir. The Day was perfect, no wind, very light fishing pressure and prime time for a big one. Unfortunately, the biggest fish I saw today was at the cleaning…
The end of March ended like February started, tough fishing. I wouldn’t call it bad but today we had to work for the fish we caught. We landed a total of 5 fish from 4-8 lbs. After a two week vacation in Maui, casting and setting was still a bit painful. I think the golf…
It had the potential to be as good as it was last week. The weather reports were suggesting a near 90 degree high and there were high clouds and light to no wind. You couldn’t ask for more except a whole bunch of fish. I was debating on fishing the lake,…
It’s been almost over a year since I took Richard fly fishing. The last time I took him out, he had just learned to cast a shooting head and caught his first stripers on a cast fly. He’s been practicing his casting for a year and yesterday I felt that maybe the forebay…
I spent Friday at the Pleasanton Fly Fishing Show hanging out with Wayne, Benson and Victor who drove down from Redding and Chico. I especially enjoyed John Sherman’s Delta presentation. His great photography can be found in one of my favorite books, Fly Fishing the Califonria Delta written by Captain Mike Costello. One thing…
The last decent day on the Forebay was a couple weeks ago when it was freezing cold and foggy all day. Today was the opposite. As cold as it was a couple weeks ago, it was equally too hot today. With 80 degrees highs and 60 degree water I wasn’t sure what the fish would…
Last year I was a big fan of Monofilament running lines. The majority of my rods are rigged with t-14 and t-11 shooting heads with OPST Lazar running line. It does cast with very little friction and there is very little stretch but there is only one downside. The line is so slick that its…
Northern California is is on the verge of the biggest water deficit in it’s history. There has been no rain in January and it looks bad for fishing next year. With that in mind, I met up with Dave Bearden and fished the Oneil Forebay today. It was a beautiful fog free summer like…
I was contemplating fishing the lake or the forebay before the weekend when I received an email from Ken Oda that he was planning on fishing on Sunday. Last year we had a stellar day on the Forebay when we met up by accident at the boat launch. Ken works for the Department…
On this Martin Luther King holiday, I think of how there is no racism in flyfishing — at least none that I’ve noticed. Having finished the home chores early on Sunday, I decided at the last minute to check out the Main Lake — San Luis Reservoir. I haven’t fished it in months and…
Last weekend I pulled the boat out from the Delta and spent the weekend cleaning the Green Sludge off the boat in San Jose. Reports from the Delta have been very slow so I decided to try O’Neill Forebay\San Luis for the month of January or till things heat up at Sugerbarge. I wasn’t expecting much…
If all goes well, Ill be fishing the Delta from here on out. I decided to give San Luis another try this morning hoping last weeks slow day was a fluke. The day started out very windy. The east winds really whip up the 156 bridge channel. I only managed 5 fish and all caught…
The weather and wind finally got reasonable after Saturday and Sunday Morning 20 Plus mph wind. Monday was calm and warm and the solonar tables were 4 stars. Somebody forgot to tell the Stripers that it was a stellar day for fishing. I ended up with only 5 fish for the day and one LMB, …
Ain’t tech grand. With the wonders of streaming technology, I can now do two of my favorite things at the same time– Fish for Stripers and watch College football at the SAME TIME. No TIVO or VCR or people who tell you the score before you watch the game. There something much more fun about watching…
I set out to catch a big fish today and I did, but not in the place I thought I would catch it. I arrived at the Basalt Ramp on the Big Louis at 8:30 and there were three boats pulled over to the side waiting for someone to bite the bullet and launch. The…
Oneill Forebay will always have water in it as long as all of California’s powerful politicians live in Southern California and support the rape of Northern California Delta water supplies to water their lawns. Oneill Forebay is filled by delta pumps and by San Luis Reservoir which acts like a buffer to hold water…
I am beginning to embrace windy conditions at the Oneill Forebay. I use to punt going fishing there if the wind lady said it was anywhere between 15 and 20mph north winds, but now that Ive fished the forebay several times when the yellow and red lights have been on at the main lake, I…
It’s been three days since I pulled on a striper and I’m having withdrawals. It wasn’t that long ago I was in a slump. I was fishing all of May wondering when the slump would end. This month, Im wondering when the hot fishing will cool down. Fish while the fishin’s good because you never…