I want to catch a big striped bass.
by: kovacsxtranormal

For the first time in years,  I scored a Zero at the lake.  I took my buddy Rick out and we put in a whole day looking around the Big Lake for eating fish.  We saw plenty and even baitfished over a school of them for an hour with anchovies.  I really wanted Rick to catch one.  We trolled umbrella rigs, 4 inch rebels and PLines,  and large and small flies at depths to 30 feet for miles and miles in all the familiar places and then some. We flyfished the rocks at Cottonwood ,the flats  in the Bay of Pigs, Lone Pine Bay, and  Portuguese Cove and NADA.   The lake is still 20 feet below last year and the character of the lake has really changed. I think Im going to put off the lake and concentrate on the Forebay this next month because I know I can always pick one up there somewhere and the fish are more concentrated.  The forebay is really low right now and even the aquaducts are low.  The locals fish the aquaduct and they even say they are too low to fish.  Im thinking the best shot are the Flats of the forebay where you might see them and the deep channels in the middle where they must probably move to when it gets crazy shallow.  We saw one small striper caught on bait in the Bay of Pigs near the dam in 30 feet of water. Water temp was 53 degrees and the water table although clear, had a suspension of green algae chuncks about a dime in diameter in most of the lake. Weird for this time of year. I inquired with the Park Ranger about when and why the lake and forebay are pumping water OUT and he informed me that currently they are pumpng in during the day and out during the night and it seldom has anything to do with the current lack of rain. As with most Santa Clara Water District decisions, it doesn’t make any sense to me.