New Bait and Techniques Produce at El Cap

Fishing Time: 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM
Weather:  Partly cloudy, slight breeze, T-70
Moon Phase: New Moon
Location: El Capitan Reservoir
Best Bait: Ned Rig (green pumpkin)
Who Went: Dunc

I had family in town last weekend, so no fishing, but I also had a random day off this week on Tuesday, and fished El Cap all day.  I have been doing some research on what winter baits work here in Cali, and came across one that peaked my interest.  It’s a fairly new plastic bait called the Ned Rig.  It’s made by Z-man, however there have been other companies making knock offs for a while now, so it must not be all that new to the scene.  Either way it’s new to me, and I hit the tackle shop before arriving to El Cap to give it a try.  It’s basically a shaky style jig head joined with what looks like a half of a senko.  The plastic is only 3-inches long, and the hook is exposed.  The flat jig head makes the bait stand straight up and gives the profile appearance of a small baitfish nose down on the lake bottom.

I also talked to a guy fishing on a float tube last week at El Capitan that gave me some good intel.  I asked him how he was doing and he said, “really good, all the fish are shallow within 1-5 ft of water”.  This caught me by surprise as I expected all the bass to be deep during winter.  I have focused on 15-40 ft of water, and it’s not to say that some are not deep.  I have done well fishing these depths, but when the guy told me he also caught a 4 pounder in 2 ft of water it got me thinking…

With all my new knowledge, I was excited to try out the Ned Rig and put it to work in some shallower water.  On my 3^rd or 4^th cast it proved itself with a tiny little bass.  Not the size I was looking for, but it gave me confidence in the new bait.  

I continued fishing the Ned Rig and it continued to produce, including one nice bass a shade over 3 pounds. 

I’m sold on the new rig and amazed at how aggressively the bass inhale this bait…

I started wondering if I took some live shiners and put them to the test in shallow water what would happen.  Turns out it was gang busters.  I found a point with some submerged brush and would toss the shiner 3 ft below a slip bobber up near the brush.  I landed a lot of fish using this method and some good ones too.  Some very fat 2 pounders with good fight. 

I also caught a black crappie using the shallow shiner method and it was a bruiser.  I didn’t have a scale or tape, but it was all of 15 inches and probably around 2 pounds.  A fun addition to the bass bonanza.

The fishing was so good, I ran out of shiners for the first time since being here in Cali.  Not a bad problem to have and when they ran out, I just turned back to the Ned Rig and it continued to produce.  I even caught one last 2-pound bass right at the boat ramp before calling it a day. 

I was the last one off the lake and was thrilled with my day.  I must have caught around 15 bass plus the bruiser crappie.  The size of bass was better today with most of the bass in the 2-3-pound range.  Still waiting for that wall hanger, but a great day on the water to say the least.

El Cap is Still my favorite

Fishing Time: 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM

Weather: Sunny, calm, T-70

Moon Phase: 63% Moon

Location:  El Capitan Reservoir

Best Bait: Live shiner 

Who Went:  Dunc

El Capitan Reservoir is definitely my favorite of all the lakes I’ve fished in San Diego so far.  I think it’s because it’s similar to the reservoirs I’m used to fishing at home.  Deep water reservoir, with rock and sand shorelines.  Good underwater structure made up of points and underwater ridges.  Plus, I know it holds some monster bass! 

I skipped finding new water today and hit El Cap once again.  This time I equipped my float tube with my fish finder to help in finding some deep water bass.  I was amazed at how many I saw.  Every point, ridge, or hump, held multiple bass.  The frustrating part was they wouldn’t bite!  I would literally watch on my fish finder as they would come up and look at my live shiner and every time I thought this is the one, he’s going to bite, but then nothing. 

I covered a lot of water today including the big underwater ridge that I have been dying to fish.  However, I didn’t see many fish on the ridge, and never got a bite.  It was a bit scary to with boats flying by a little closer than I was comfortable with.  I tried another cove nearby and just as I was starting to lose hope on the day, my line started running.  I reeled in the slack, set the hook, and the fight was on.  This fish had some gusto, and after a few good runs I started to get very excited, thinking this was the fish I’ve been waiting for.  Finally, a monster bass!  It seemed like forever before it surfaced and when it did, I was looking eye to eye with a big ole blue catfish!  It was bittersweet.  The fight was awesome, and I have never caught a blue catfish, so that was very cool, but I couldn’t help being slightly disappointed with hopes of a giant bass.  I took a few mugshots of the big blue kitty cat before releasing it near my tube.  He was probably in the 8-10 pound range, so I didn’t bring him on board with me.

I continued fishing the bay and tried fishing a bit shallower to see if anything was more active, but it was the same story as deep water.  Lots of fish, but no takers.  Again, starting to lose hope, my line started running again.  I got a good hook set, but this fight didn’t fight as long.  It felt good however, to land a bass after fishing hard all day.  I took a few snapshots and let it go. I continued to fish the bay, but that was the only bass willing to bite.  Even though I didn’t catch many fish it was fun to land a big ole catfish and seeing fish all day on my finder kept me mesmerized all day long.  One of these day’s those fish will turn on and be biting.  When they do it will be a fun day. 

Lower Otay Lake, San Diego - Back to Warm Weather

Fishing Time: 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Weather: AM: Foggy and cool PM: sunny, warm, T-70

Moon Phase: 70% Moon

Location:  Lower Otay Lake - San Diego

Water Temp:  Unknown

Best Bait:  Live shiner 3 ft under a slip bobber on a size 2 mosquito hook

Who Went:  Dunc

I’m back in San Diego after a great holiday break at home.  After two weeks off, it was hard to get back into the swing of working every day.  Yuck.  For my first day off I wanted to hit a new lake that I’ve heard a lot about from locals.  Of course, they talk about how good it is in April and May, but I won’t be around that long, so now is the time!  Lower Otay Lake is near Chula Vista, California, and it looks just like what you would expect from a big bass producing lake.  Shorelines lined with tullies, sunken brush, and trees underwater.  The unfortunate part is due to the tullie lined shorelines there is very limited access for a float tube.  I drove around the lake and there were so many spots that looked good, but access with a float tube was impossible. 

I found the best looking spot I could drag a float tube and dunked it in the water.  Armed with my usual bucket of shiners, I started making my way down the tullies trying to keep my shiner near the bottom in 10-15 ft of water.  This lake was tough because the bottom was so thick with decomposed tullies that my shiner kept getting snagged or covered in moss.  I soon realized this tactic was not going to work, so  I put away the shiners for a bit and went to a 3-inch clear ice fluke and threw that towards the tullies for a bit.  Unfortunately, that didn’t produce either. 

I was a bit frustrated at this point, so I rigged up a slip bobber and pinned a live shiner about 3-4 ft below, and threw it up near the tullies while I munched on a snack.  I didn’t finish my second bite before the bobber went down hard.  After a quick fight I landed the first largemouth of the day.  Bingo.  The bobber was producing.

I continued my slip bobber tactics up and down the tullies and landed a total of 5 bass and missed about 3 more.  They were all small, but it was fun and much better than getting skunked.  I would love to hit this lake again on my boat if I ever get the chance, because there are some great looking areas, and from my internet research, there are some good gravel bottoms and underwater ridges that unfortunately I couldn’t access on my tube.  Good news is, I have avoided a skunk at every lake I have fished in San Diego so far, so no complaints.  Bad news is, I can’t seem to find anything with any size and it’s driving me nuts because I know they are there!  Maybe my time will come…

Home for the Holidays

Fishing Time: Early morning of December 16 and 30

Weather:  Unseasonably warm, T-50s, slight breeze

Moon Phase: New Moon, 80% Moon

Location: Flaming Gorge

Water Temp: 43 degrees

Best Bait: 7-inch tube jig, rainbow pattern - 1 ounce jighead

Who Went:  Bobber John, Dunc

I was able to sneak out of the house a couple times while home for the holidays.  I made two extreme day trips to Flaming Gorge.  My first trip on December 16, ended up a disaster.  To start, my fish finder was acting up and not showing fish or our jigs deeper than 70 feet.  With most of the lake trout we fish for at 90+ ft this was not good.  We spent about an hour of prime fishing hours messing with my fish finder trying to get it to work.  We finally got it to work okay, but not great.  After a decade my finder may be on its last leg! 

We fished most our areas and were not seeing many fish.  We finally settled on a nice hump and saw a for sure fish right on the bottom.  We dropped our jigs and within seconds I had a good hit and it was fish on.  I started playing the fish as normal, but he started taking a big run and my rod doubled over beneath the boat.  It was a long run and before it was over, my line snapped!  I have never had this happen at Flaming Gorge while fishing for lake trout.  I was devastated to say the least.

Bobber John was able to entice one more bit for the morning, but did not hook up.  I was left with the haunted feeling of losing a good fish all the way home.  If felt like a trip home from Wendover after dropping a $1,000 on gambling.  Not a fun feeling.  It’s still haunting me!

When I arrived home, I researched my fish finder and soon realized that I have never installed any updates since I purchased it in 2009.  Apparently, there are a bunch of updates from Lowrance that need to be installed.  Whoops.  I went ahead and updated everything hoping that was the issue.

We arrived at Flaming Gorge for round 2 on December 30, and the first thing I did was check my fish finder.  Yep good to go.  Yes!  Now on to finding fish.  Uh, where did they all go?  It was the weirdest Flaming Gorge trip I have ever experienced.  We could not find fish anywhere.  I’ve had many trips where you see fish on every hump, but can’t get them to bite, but it’s very rare to have a trip where you don’t see fish.  We fished searched hard, finding a lonesome straggler here and there.  Luckily, I did get one hit and landed a small 8-10 pounder just to avoid the two trip skunk. 

This year is crazy warm and the water temps are much warmer than usual for this time of year.  My only thought is that it has changed their patterns and the fish aren’t where we expect them to be.  It will probably take a cold snap to push them into normal winter patterns.  Either way, it was a disappointing winter at the Gorge.  

New Water Equals Bad Results

Fishing Time:  12-9-2017 and 12-10-2018

Weather: Sunny, calm, T-60s

Moon Phase: 60% Moon

Location:  Lake Murray

Best Bait: Live shiner on a size 2 mosquito hook with a split shot sinker 2 ft above the hook

Who Went: Dunc

I tried a new bait shop this week.  Barnacle Bills Bait shop, ran by none other than Barnacle Bill himself.  I told him I have had success at El Capitan, but was hoping he could point me to some new waters that may produce a trophy bass.  Bill was very nice and even offered to take me out on his boat, but unfortunately our work schedules don’t line up.  He did tell me that I should try Lake Murray and even told me his favorite spot.  With much excitement and anticipation, I bought some live shiners and drove to Lake Murray. 

Lake Murray is a small little reservoir right in the middle of the city with a walking path that surrounds the shoreline.  It’s busy just like everywhere in San Diego, but I found a parking spot and dragged my tube to the closest point near Bills secret hole.  I kicked my way over on my float tube and set up to fish.  After a couple casts I had my first bite and landed a small bass.  I continued to cast to the same area for another hour, but no more bass wanted to play.  I was out of shiners, so I called it a day.

I returned the next day with more advice from Bill and more live shiners.  There were a few boats out and I listened to their complaints about how slow it has been and how the water temps have dropped considerably over the last few weeks.  Apparently, December and January are the toughest bass fishing months in San Diego.  Lucky me. 

I kicked my way back over to Bills spot and fished it for a good 1-2 hours without a bite.  Frustrated, I eves dropped on a couple more boats talking about how many bass they were seeing suspended deep on their fish finders, but were unable to get them to bite.  Knowing I had live shiners in my arsenal versus the plastics the boats were throwing, I got excited again.  Surely if I drop a live shiner on top of these suspended bass they will eat it.  No bass can resist a live shiner stuck right in front of their face.  Well I was wrong.  I spent the entire rest of the day kicking around the deep holes slowly dragging shiners and didn’t get one bite.  It had been a long day and I decided to give up, but kept a minnow close to bottom as I kicked my way back into shore. 

I was literally 50 ft away from shore and about to reel in for the day when it happened.  My first bite of the day, and it was a good one.  I let the fish take some line and then wham! Set the hook.  Line started flying out of my reel and I realized as I set the hook my thumb hit the line release.  I have never done that before and to do it on a potential trophy bass and my only bite of the day was devastating.  The fish was gone and I was stunned.  I made a circle and dropped another minnow to see if I could get another bite, but it wasn’t meant to be.  A frustrating two days on Lake Murray, but I feel that all the other boaters had the same luck.  In two days I didn’t see one boat on Lake Murray land a fish. 

These winter months may be tough, but I will keep trying and maybe get lucky and land the bass of a lifetime.  This was my last outing of the year before I head home for the holidays.  Hopefully the new year will bring better luck in my quest my wall hanger bass!

Another trip to El Capitan Reservoir

Fishing Time: 8:30 AM to 1:00 PM

Weather: Sunny, calm, T-70s

Moon Phase: Full Moon

Location: El Capitan Reservoir

Best Bait: Live shiner on a size 2 mosquito hook with a 1/4-ounce split shot weight 2 ft above the hook.

Who Went: Dunc

Another week and another trip to El Capitan Reservoir.  This trip I decided to try a different type of live bait.  Crawdads!  I know using live bait is a bit of a cheat, but it’s against the law where I live and they work so well!  Plus, it’s really fun!  I’m not into the etiquette of fishing or have to much pride to only use plastics and lures.  I want to catch a big bass while I’m in San Diego and I feel this is my best chance.  Anyway, off my soap box…

The crawdads looked so cool swimming in the water, but to be honest, they didn’t work.  Not on this trip.  It was still all about the live shiners.  I only landed a few on this outing, and I’m still searching for the big bite!  Either way it was a nice day on the water.  So. Cal is heading into the winter slow down, so the bass fishing is starting to slow down, but to even be fishing for bass in December is awesome!  I think it’s time to leave the comfort of El Cap and try some new waters… 

I also found a friend on this trip.  He was looking for a handout and was literally trying to climb onto my flippers.  I knew San Diego was known for beggars, but I didn't know the ducks were in on it as well, haha!