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.”
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…
July 4th needs to be celebrated. Each citizen and patriot in there own way needs to rejoice the day that the Declaration of Independence was adopted and the United States officially became the greatest framework for Freedom, Morality and Justice ever created by man. I celebrated the 4th of July by fly fishing San Luis…
Over the years, you learn that you should fish when the fishing is good and you should still fish when the fishing is bad. This week the fishing has been good at the racks . Having fished it three times in the last 5 days, I am especially grateful to the DWR for leaving…
After the great day we had at the racks last tuesday, I got a report from a friend about some big fish being caught at the racks and wednesday. Once in awhile a school of really big fish move into the racks and feed at a reasonable fly fishing depth. RIchard and I headed for…
I sometimes think of the Trash Racks as 4 giant teeth in need of flossing. Finally with a windless day in the forecast, I had a chance to make good on my promise to take Richard to the Trash Racks for a real “session”. My fellow veteran boat buddies, Tim and Brian, had…
Brian got his personal best striper on the Lake on Wednesday fishing a calm wind day on the racks. Brian had an epic day catching 45 good fish at the racks including the big one that he measured and weighed . According to Brian the fish was 39 inches and weighed 28 lbs. The fish…
The Wind line has been down for a couple months now. Its much more of a crapshoot to go down to the forebay when the websites call for marginally high east winds. Sometimes the wind can be blowing 10-15 mph from the east and the forebay is glass because of the hills blocking…
Saturday May 21, 2021 -The weeds are starting to get thick in the Forebay this month. I woke up early this morning because I’m still jet lagged from our Paris Trip, and between the hayfever allergies and the Jet Lag, I was not feeling 100 percent. I took a Covid test just to make sure…
Wednesday May 4, 2021 – First Rule of Wednesday Fishing Club is don’t talk about Wednesday Fishing Club. Its common knowledge to many that Dentists traditionally take Wednesdays off to golf. If you’ve ever booked a tee time on a Wednesday, you probably know this already. Most doctors work a 4 day week and traditionally,…
Monday April 25, 2022 There has never been a day when Frank, Steve Santucci, Brian, Dan Blanton, Vaughn, and Richard were all out on the Forebay on a Monday. I got to the lake at 8:00am and I knew I was late when Brian, Vaughn and I all pulled up to the Cottonwood Launch at…
This report should be about Pyramid Lake and in a way it is. Up to last night at 7:00 PM. I was packed and ready to ladder up at Pyramid lake. I learned that the San Jose Flycaster was having their fish out this upcoming Monday. The next couple weeks are going to be very…
I was foolish today, April 1 2022, to think I could repeat last weeks epic day. The day looked perfect and I tried visualize epic before the day started but the fish just didn’t cooperate today. It wasn’t for lack of finding them either. I made lots of fly changes today without any clear winners.…
Friday March 25, 2022.- The forebay fished great today.The morning started out challenging. I fished the trench with a small brown and white clouser as I had last week and picked up fish in the trench fishing 15 feet of water. The fish are starting to exhibit spawning behavior in the 62 degree water. The…
Friday March 18, 2022 -This years Striper fishing in the forebay has gotten off to a very soft start. I haven’t been fishing it much because reports have been slow to fair and few attempts Ive made this year have been really tough. It’s so different than last year. But today I felt like the…
Friday February 19 2022 Even though the best reports from the lake and forebay these last few weeks have been fair to poor, I had to go back and look for myself, especially with February getting closer to the possible closure of the Lake. Some people have been hinting that the lake would remain…