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.”
Friday Aug 6, 2021 Vaughn and I figure we’ve been fishing buddies for about ten years now. Yet today was the first time we fished in my boat together. A couple weeks ago we fished with Bryce Tedford together and it seemed like we had fished together for year him in the front and I…
After fishing the Forebay for many years, I basically forgot how many skills you must master to catch a Striped Bass on a fly . It starts with fly casting. Len Bearden’s memorable quote was ” Meng. you are only as good a fisherman as you cast…”. To Fly Fish for Stripers, you must learn…
I was beginning to think I was jinkxed with the weather at O’neill Forebay. For the last two weeks I’ve been trying to get out every day that I have been off work. Unfortunately, I’m about 50 percent these last two weeks when it comes to actually making the ride due to inaccurate wind…
Friday July 23, 2021 – Today I scouted the Main Lake and Forebay. This year’s drought has already drawn the lake down to nearly 40 percent capacity. I haven’t seen it this low since the great drought. When the water gets low like this, sometimes you can catch some really big fish off the shoreline. …
Sunday July 18, 2021 – There is nothing quite as satisfying as fishing with your dog or in this case fishing with your kids dog. Kimmie and I spent a nice day on the forebay . Some rare cloud cover and heat helped keep the winds down till 3:30. We had a window of calm…
Wednesday July 15 2012 -It wasn’t till 11:00 today when I decided to go and fish the forebay again. The last two opportunities paid off big and the odds seemed in my favor today. Last night I checked the wind to see if the pattern had changed and to my suprise, the winds were…
MONDAY July 12, 2021 – I have the week off. This week I was supposed to be in Cuba fly fishing the Jardines de la Reina but because of COVID, the airlines cancelled flights to Havana. It looks like we dodged a bullet since today (the day we were to land in Havana) thousands of…
FRIDAY July 9, 2021 -The Wind basically wipe the month of June off my fishing diary with high winds and ambiguous wind predictions. The best fishing of the month was when I challenged the wind predictions and won. Today was one of those days. The wind predictions have consistently predicted a small windows of…
Sunday July 27 2021 – It was August 2013 when San Luis hit its lowest level in history. Since then, The DWR vowed never to let the lake drop that low ever again. The algae blooms nearly ruined the lakes plumbing and the local reservoirs that depend on San Luis Reservoir dried up . The…
After weeks of windy weekends, I finally made it to the Racks during a still day. Yesterdays report from Brian and Tim had me “pumped” for the racks. This time of year, the fish are big and fat and ready to spawn. When the racks are good, its non stop action and…
Hoping to get on those stripers in the trench again, I called up Pee Wee to see if he wanted to join me and take a chance on a small window of opportunity. Unfortunately, we only had a hour of somewhat calm before the white caps started rolling in. The fish were in the trench…
The winds of March 2021 have been relentless and it’s been tough to coordinate my off days with the calm windows. Two Days ago, Brian got his PB at the trash racks- an 18 lb beauty. God know he’s put the time in. I think he fishes San Luis and Forebay more than any of…
The winds at San Luis Reservoir and Forebay have been very unpredictable this weekend. I tried to arrange a day of fishing with my old friend Pee Wee Marshal but as it would turn out, there is no such thing as a firm fishing date on San Luis since the winds can build up…
It’s been months since I fished the Lake and I felt very rusty. I had to unlearn some striper habits fishing for big cutthroat trout at Pyramid Lake. Three weeks ago I fished the forebay and I can’t remember the last time I fished the lake. While in Hawaii last week, Brian was texting me…
I left the house optimistic that the wind would finally die down so I could fish the Racks. Like last year this month, this is the time when the water starts to warm and big stripers start getting aggressive as they begin to spawn. Full moons, wind currents and warmer water (around 60) makes those…
Friday March 5 2021 – Fishing has definitely picked up on the forebay today. Catching 25 is always better than catching 2. The water temp is up to 59 degrees but the visibility is still about three feet. Last night there was a big moon and the solunar table was pretty pessimistic today. The weather…
Monday February 22, 2021 – After scouting the Forebay on Friday, I was about to cancel Monday with Don on the Forebay. It’s getting hard to catch fish and I had my doubts about being able to catch fish basically blind casting from a chair. But as it turns out, I got out-fished by…
February 19, 2021 – The difference between a really bad day and 21 fish can be the last couple hours of the day as it was today. I remember many “magic hour” sessions on trout streams when the whole day boils down to half an hour of crazy fishing. It felt like that…
Valentines Day – Feb 14, 2021 – I didn’t really massacre the fish today but it was better than Minimum Wage. Just one of those titles that makes you read the post. Fishing from 11:00-4:00, I hooked over 20 fish and landed 18. It was definitely an improvement over my last trip to the…
Sunday Feb 7, 2021 -After a pretty good day Friday on the Forebay and some good report on Saturday from the lake, I decided to go check out the lake to see if its turning on. Tim had a decent minimum wage day at the lake and the water has been reported to be…