Fishing Report: San Luis Reservoir February 24, 2018
Everything went well this morning when Teng, Nick and I arrived at San Luis Reservoir. The lake was calm and the sun wasn’t completely out yet.
We went over to Portuguese cove and immediately Nick hooks into a striper on the Atlas Rig. A couple minutes later another striper on! Hey the bites going to be good today!
We fished the bottom in 40ish feet of water. We’d have situations where solo stripers are marked. Then as if on cue, it’d be fish on moments later. The majority of fish caught in Portuguese were caught near the bottom.
We noticed the boat was taking in a little water. No problem.
I’ll just turn on the bilge pump. Thirty minutes later, I notice water is still being pumped out.
I decided to pull my inboard engine cover off and to see if there was a leak. Sure enough, water was gushing through the a loose clamp holding a seal. After several minutes I was able to tighten the clamp a bit and slow it down to a trickle.
Problem temporarily solved. Now we can try a new area. I go to crank the engine and it won’t start. After a few more tries I can hear the engine loss more power. The battery was low and didn’t have enough cranking power to start the boat.
We’re exiting Lone Oak Bay at this point. So with the kicker motor on, we trolled back to the Basalt Boat Ramp.
Lone Oak Bay a few weeks back was THE place to go. We marked fish on the bottom and sometimes they would be suspended chasing shad. Once we spotted the shad schools, we placed the Atlas Rig at the target depth and it was fish on.
Today, it was crickets. Nada.
We continued trolling with the kicker motor and halfway to the Basalt boat ramp, Nick hooks into the big fish of the day coming in at 25in. We had marked it moments before as a solo arc suspended at 60′ in 125′ of water. Solo striper marks seem to be the active fish today.
When we got to the boat ramp, we decided to spend the rest of the day trolling the launch area instead of packing up.
Here’s where being resourceful and having a little knowledge of the lake came in handy.
We knew there were two types structure in close proximity that could hold stripers. A secondary boat ramp and parking lot below the current one and two submerged island directly across from the ramp.
We had a general idea of where they were but to pinpoint them and fish them properly, I used the apple map app on my iPhone. Currently, the app is still displaying the lake at a very low level.
It also tracks my movement while displaying the map which is why it’s so useful. It can display things like cover, structure and submerged parking lots!
On our first pass through the submerged parking lot, I mark a small school clustered on the bottom in 100′ of water. With the Atlas rigs hovering about a foot off the bottom, we see the rod go off a few moments later.
At this point the waves were getting rougher and winds gusting. We’re near the submerged islands at this point. The islands were about 100′ below the surface.
Again we lowered the Atlas Rigs using the Scotty downriggers down to 5′ off the bottom and followed it’s contour. Knowing the depth of the Atlas when paired with the downriggers was key to fishing the area.
Halfway up the edge of the submerged island, we spot a solo mark and it got a striper on one of the Atlas Rigs.
We ended the day with 10 stripers to 25″ after the wind and waves got too rough. Maybe next time we won’t have to travel so far to catch these fish. They’re right across from the boat ramp.
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
