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.”
I took my buddy Rick to the main lake today for a couple hours of topwater. Unlike yesterday, there was no line at the gate for inspections. We arrived at 6:30 and it was dark. We were boat number 3. They seem to be letting more water out of the lake and…
Ive never been in a longer line to launch at the lake than today. Could it be the BART Strike or Government shutdown? Is this were they show up when they aren’t working? I got to my regular spot late this morning around 7:30 and I saw a boat working my favorite bank.…
It was a freaky morning at the lake with the stripers acting like trout again. What a difference a day makes. Today’s solonar was a bit better and the air temperature was about 2 degrees warmer. I did get on the lake 20 minutes earlier and the wind laid down until 10am makeing the…
Its been 5 days since last weeks great topwater action on the main lake. I arrived at the lake a little late, and the boat ramp was full of boats. It was extremely crowded today. The word must be out that the fishing is picking up. When I arrived at my favorite…
Researched Grass shrimp and Striper fishing and found this quote written in 2002 by Captain John McMurray , a striper flyfishing guide, conservationist, and Author from Jamaica Bay, NY. It only follows to reason that when the grass shrimp are around in numbers one would use 1/2 to 3/4-inch grass shrimp patterns. However, this is…
After fishing the lake for 40 years, I am amazed that there is still so much to learn about the stripers in this lake. I hit the lake Saturday and Sunday at the break of day till noon and had some of the best topwater striper fishing yet. It was surreal to see how the…
This morning I took a buddy of mine out to fish the O’Neill Forebay. In exchange, Jim Cramer treated me to a picnic Lunch with the FlyCasters of San Jose’s annual Fishout BBQ Lunch at the Forebay. I met lots of current members and we talked San Luis Flyfishing for an hour. I hadn’t…
To get pumped to fish the main lake after a 4 month hiatus, I consulted my San Luis buddies last week. One told me that his bait fishing buddies were saying “easy limits” and Vaughn also felt that the bigger fish were in the lake. I also reviewed last years Sept videos and with the…
I experienced only one of the above today and it wasn’t a 30lb striper. Again I went in search of the surface action at the Forebay. It was a beautiful day not to be working. A weather front brought rain two days ago and another front is expected by Tuesday. The wind was minimal and…
Last weeks early morning surface action as well as a Thursday post on Blanton’s BBoard on the forebay had me looking forward to Saturday Morning and the opportunity to fish crease flies and gurglers to busting fish. In addition, I just acquired a 3d GoPro rig and wanted to test it out on some…
Last week, a patient told me that the stripers were busting at Del Valle in the morning. For the last couple weeks, he had been catching limits of stripers on plastics from 4 am in the morning to 9:00 am and then going to work. Now that’s hard core. I don’t think my…
I received and interesting post from a UFO expert that sovled my UFO over San Luis Reservoir Mystery last year April. Thanks to Harold Daniel, the site admin fro UFO Sightings Report, it appears that the floating Pants UFO I photographed fishing San Luis on 4-16-2012 was actually google project called LOON. Google is proposing a…
I had a few fishing options this weekend considering how slow fishing was last weekend at the Lake and Forebay, I was thinking of trying Coyote Reservoir for bass or even Callero Reservoir. Callero’s water elevation has almost doubled over the last couple weeks because SCVWD is pumping San Luis water into it. San…
I was planning on fishing the Main Lake this weekend. Woke up on Saturday at 4:30 and the wind was a whopping 29 mph. When I woke up again at 8:00 ready to take care of some chores at home, I called the wind line again and it was a perfect 0 mph. I blew…
Next week at UC Davis the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Delta Science Program abd the NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service will host an independent panel of experts who will summarize the current state of knowledge on predation of Central Valley salmonids by Stripers and other fish. The question of Striper Predation on…
Just a week ago I was fishing forebay in rain and wind shivering. I finally got out last Monday after 2 days of monitoring gale force winds as the low pressure moved in for a freaky June rainstorm last week. We got to the Lake and it was too scary to launch blowing 15 from…
Tuesday June 11, 2013, Vaughn Willett had a great day “lots of 3-5 pounders and a 10 lbr to the boat” He also mentioned that the lake level is still dropping fast and that the docks and ramps would likely be out of water by the weekend and that the forebay might be the only…
There have been drought years in the past that have not drawn the lake down as low as it is now. There are those that estimate that San Luis Reservoir will reach its all time lowest level in history by this August at the current rate this year. What has changed since we are not…
The last couple weeks have been a roller coaster Wind ride. The hot days, cool nights and morning fog makes the wind build in the afternoon and go all night. Ive noticed lately that once the temperature at the lake reaches 80 degrees, the wind lady dies. When the weather cools in the evening, the…
It wasn’t a bad day considering we almost cancelled the fishing at 6 AM because the wind lady said it was howling 18 mph. We decided that a day off deserved a chance and ended up heading over to the lake anyways. When we got there, we walked out on the dock and decided it…