Fourth of July Bassin'

I know this is turning into a one-note tune, but I'm trying to figure out a couple species that are new to me.

I arranged to meet up with my fishing buddy, Tom, at Upper Otay for a little Independence Day fly fishing. Seemed an appropriate way to celebrate being American.

I got to the lot and parked next to Tom's car, around 6:45. It was already sunny at the lake, and I made a quick scan of the lake to see if fish were boiling on the surface, but didn't see anything. Tom and I talked about this later and thought maybe the boils were related to the overcast morning of Wednesday. I also talked to Peter Piconi at So Cal Fly Fishing Outfitters, who suggested those boiling fish on Wednesday were likely feeding on subsurface insects, and not bait fish like I thought. Perhaps a hatch related to the conditions of Wednesday morning?

I got on the water, spotted Tom, and worked a hare's ear nymph sporadically while I slowly kicked over to where Tom was fishing. He'd already landed a Bluegill on a white gurgler and was working around the reeds and stick-ups. I continued dropping my nymph at the base of stick-ups, water plants etc.


We worked up the west side through the fly-eating snags and into a corner. Tom picked up a gill and a bass on his gurgler, but I was still fishless. There were splashes of small bass in tight to the tullies, and in isolated pockets in the weeds. I saw one in a protected pool, tight against the tullies, and surrounded by a good ten feet of weeds. I tied on a micro popper and cast it into the pool. I gave it some twitches and pops, but for the first few casts, nothing. Finally I landed it in the pool again, popped it once, and a little bass made a splashy grab. I held my rod as high as I could and stripped fast, hoping to drag the bass over the weeds. I was too far from the weeds though, and it buried itself a few feet from clear water. I kicked over and dug him out with my hand. Not a huge bass, not even a decent one, but my first on a popper, and caught in a very bass-like fashion. Pretty fun stuff. To top it off I did it in front of a group of bass-gear fishermen.


We worked some more of these set-back pockets for a while, but nothing came of it. Tom picked up fish here and there. He's pretty consistent. I saw a guy kicking out of the Canyon Arm and asked Tom if he wanted to work back there for a while.

We kicked across, and started working the cover on either side of the narrowing arm. There's a narrow section that's just silly with structure; dead trees, tullies, water plants, shade, rocks, you name it. Tom and worked around in there. We noticed some bluegill dimpling the surface, so I tied on a Royal Wolf dry. I tossed it back there a ways and on about the third cast, it was slurped by a Bluegill. But the fight was short and my line broke. Must have been nicked from the frequent snags. But I learned another usable pattern for gills. Tom picked one up on a bugger, kind of deep.

While we worked there were splashes of a bass busting the surface, likely after some insect. Tom worked his way pretty far in there, but it was nightmare of snags and tangles. I cast a popper back there a couple of times, for naught.

Being the 4th of July, we both had obligations, so we started back working towards the lot. I decided to try some leechy patterns deep, and switched to my intermediate clear tip line. Unfortunately, on the second cast it snagged deep, and broke off at the leader when I tried freeing it. When I pulled out some tippet to tie on about 8 inches came off the spool. I unzipped the storage pockets and rifled around, hoping another spool would pop up. I knew there wasn't one. I told Tom what happened, and that I was just going to kick back to the lot. He was nice enough to give me some tippet to let me fish my way back to the car.

On the way back, Tom started working a section of dead trees. It's spot that can hold a lot of fish, but the weeds have filled in the real productive section. Suddenly he has a fish on, and it looks to be a strong one. I kicked over near him while he landed it, and it turned out to be fat, nicely-marked Bluegill.


That was about all the gas I had in me, and figured I'd better get home if I wanted to have time to stow everything, and eat before my ride for the afternoon's barbecue showed up. A pretty good day, despite only landing one fish. The lessons learned, and good company made up for my lack of numbers.