Yesterday I took my wife and kids up to Big Bear lake for the afternoon. My wife and kids played in the water over at Meadow Park and had an absolute blast. I took the opportunity to spend the afternoon fishing the North shore of the lake.
I didn't get there until afternoon and there were already quite a few people fishing, so I didn't get to start as close to the dam as I wanted to. I found a nice quiet little spot at a big turnout in the road. No one else was there. I tried several different kinds of bait and rig combinations without any luck. The only thing I got any bites on was a Berkley Trout worm rigged on a drop shot, but it didn't feel like a fish bite. If I had to guess, I would say it was probably a turtle. I would feel a quick couple nibbles as the bait went by one particular spot each time but I was never able to hook anything.
So I didn't have any luck at that spot, but I did see a pirate ship.
After a couple of hours there I decided to move up the road. I had seen earlier when we first drove by an area that looked like it would be a good place to find bass. It was in the cove area at Fawnskin. There was a ton of vegetation that was floating in large patches on the top of the water. They weren't lilly pads, but that's what it looked like from a distance, so that's what I'll call them for now. The water was calmer because it was away from the main body of the lake and I just knew I'd find fish in that cover.
I parked at the little picnic area nearby and started fishing the bank of that cove area, working my way back around towards the main body of the lake. The lilly pads started about 20 feet off the bank and continued about 100 yards out. This left a 20 foot channel between the bank and the lilly pads that the kayakers like to use.
I fished the first spot for while without any strikes. I started by dropping my bait just on the edge of the lilly pads, then switched over to a weedless rig and started casting right out on top of the lilly pads. I saw evidence of fish in there because I would see sections of the vegetation get disturbed by something underneath, as if a fish was grabbing something just on the surface, but nothing ever took a strike at my bait.
I moved from there around the side that bordered the road. There I actually saw fish for the first time that day. There were a few large fish that I think were common carp, and several smaller fish that looked (and acted) like young bass. They would watch very intently as I would cast all kinds of stuff. Whenever I would cast in their direction, they'ed rush over and check out what it was I was throwing, but wouldn't bite. The larger fish were much more skittish. Anytime I cast anything in their direction they would spook.
I moved down a couple more times until I reached the bend in the road and the inlet to the cove that led out to the main body of the lake. There is a large boulder that jets out from the bank into the water there. I climbed up there and sat down for while, fishing from the top of the boulder. Pretty soon I started seeing lots of action. Unfortunately, none of it was happening on the end of my line.
Just beyond the range of my cast fish (probably carp) started jumping out of the water. This wasn't just surface strikes. This was fully body launch into the air, tail flapping, flipping upside down and heading back into the water. They were jumping on an average of about 1 every 5 seconds or so.
I tried casting out to those areas, but just wasn't able to get it there. So I contented myself to just watch the show.
I finished up and headed back to the truck, drove back to the park and picked up Julie and the kids at 5, and then treated everyone to real nice sit down dinner at a place with silverware, waiters and everything. By the way, did you know they now serve the Grand Slam Breakfast as a sandwich??
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