Fishing Report: O’Neill Forebay June 24, 2018
So what do you do when they red light San Luis Reservoir? Sometimes when the winds are too high like in the summer months, lake management will not allow people to take their boats out onto the lake. But on some occasions, they will open O’Neill Forebay to boating if the waves and winds are tolerable. Today was one of those days.
I got a call from Xiong the day before about a last minute fishing trip. He wanted to take his brother in law Steve striper fishing at San Luis Reservoir and wanted me to go. He even offered to tow the boat with his SUV. How could I refuse this offer.
We called the lake that morning and the wind lady said it was blowing 30mph. Hmmm. The wind lady’s probably not functioning properly this morning. Let’s go anyways.
We get to the lake and sure enough, the lake was open to boating. Laughing about how wrong the wind lady was, we backed the boat down the ramp. We were about to put the boat in the water when a white truck with the words “State Park” drove down to meet us.
“They’re closing the lake down to boating,” said the worker, “But the small lake is open if you want to head down there.” So much for fishing the big lake. We waited another 15-20 minutes hoping the wind would die down but the white caps kept rolling through off in the distance. We decided to hit O’Neill Forebay.
O’Neill Forebay although in close proximaty to San Luis Reservoir, is a totally different lake. It’s shallower, smaller, the structure and cover there is different than San Luis Reservoir. Plus I hadn’t fished that lake in almost a year…maybe longer.
If you’re not familiar with fishing O’Neill Forebay, you can learn more about fishing the lake HERE. I wrote a detailed how to get started fishing at O’Neill Forebay article on it awhile back.
I wasn’t sure what the bite was like so we just hit every place we thought might hold fish. First location was the channel over by the power lines. By this time the wind was blowing over the lake. I wasn’t marking much and the current with the wind made it hard to keep the boat going on the same path. After about 30 minutes we left for a new location.
We tried the middle of the lake. I’ve seen stripers school up here from time to time. But with all the water being pumped through O’Neill Forebay from San Luis Reservoir, it was full of floating vegetation above and below water. We had a lot of debris caught on the Atlas Rigs at all depths.
We tried the North side of the lake with no luck. Trolled along the dam and nada. It was beginning to look like a bad day. Finally we tried the channel on the east side of the lake going towards check 13.
There was less debris and with the wind blowing east, it made trolling a lot easier. There were fish here. We started hooking up but we had to work for them. Here’s how we did it.
While trolling, it was hard to tell what marks were fish and what marks were debris on the fish finder. We had three rods out. Two rods were higher in the water column while I had my rod as close as I could near the bottom.
Every now and then I would pull and let go of the line using the rod tip. This made the Atlas Rig flex back and expand. Creating action with the swimbaits and teasers. After a few pops, we finally hook up. I figure they were lower in the water column so I used the downrigger to keep it at depth.
I would let the Atlas Rig drag on the bottom and then lift it off. I repeated this a few more times and whamm! Fish on!
They were in the area but without that added action to entice them to bite, they weren’t going to bite.
We had left the area to fish other locations and returned again before going home. On one of our passes we did the same thing, let it sink near bottom and popped the Atlas Rig to create action while trolling. This helped us land two more fish on the white and chartreuse colors.
The bite wasn’t as good as we had hoped but we were able to shake off the skunk. We definitely worked for these fish today but had fun trying to figure out the bite. Most of the time the best part for me isn’t the catch but figuring out what it is that makes them bite. Today, it was the constant change in action from the Atlas Rigs flexing and expanding that got them to bite. Having the Atlas Rig at the proper depth helped. That’s why the Atlas Rig depth charts are so important. I knew exactly how close to the bottom I was without having to guesstimate my depth.
Now you know. Go get em!
You can find the same gear I use using the affiliate links below.
–Okuma Cold Water line counter reel
–Daiwa Wilderness Trolling Rod
