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Afternoon bite at Boronda Lake

17 Aug 2025

I was originally planning on heading down to Carmel today, but the waves looked a little rough so I decided to sleep in and head somewhere a little closer. Boronda Lake was picturesque as always, and there were a lot of fishermen out enjoying the afternoon sun. Unfortunately, as is also typical of Boronda, the lake was filled with thick vegetation thanks to its shallow depth. Make sure you use a weedless setup if you plan on fishing here.

In general, the bite was pretty slow until sunset, which is when the fishing picked up. We ended up catching a bunch of nice sized redear sunfish, casting from the fishing dock into the deeper parts of the lake using a weightless nightcrawler under a bobber. We also got two small bass on a classic Senko and a Z-Man Slim SwimZ. Not many bigger fish here, but it’s nice to have a fishing hole like this close to home.

A nice redear hybrid (I think)	A small bass caught on a Z-Man Slim SwimZ

Recently, I’ve been experimenting more with the Z-Man Elaztech soft plastics, like the aforementioned Slim SwimZ. So far, I’ve found them pretty appealing for a couple reasons. First, they have a bit of natural buoyancy to them, which makes them float off the bottom a bit like a real minnow even if the lure is sitting still. Second, they are practically invincible compared to the durability of a traditional soft plastic, at the cost in some action — they’re pretty hard to rip off the hook, and you can fish all day with a single plastic. Finally, they are in theory nontoxic: most current soft plastic lures are made using PVC combined with a pretty significant amount of phthalates, the latter of which is quite well known to be a health risk. In contrast, most Elaztech plastics are made with some form of thermoplastic elastomer which should not in principle need the phthalates, making them a much more health-conscious option. Jury’s still out on whether they catch as many fish as the Senko or Keitechs, but so far results have been promising.

A quiet day at Bean Hollow

09 Aug 2025

I had a long week at work so I was itching to get out onto the rocks today. Originally, I was planninng on making the drive out to the Monterey/Carmel cliffs, but unfortunately I woke up too late and the drive ended up being about an hour longer than usual thanks to traffic. So, I decided to pivot to Bean Hollow State Beach.

I’ve fished here at Bean Hollow many times before, but I’ve always primarily fished the northern end of the park. Thus, I decided to use the time to try and scout out a couple more spots here more on the southern end. I first went to the very southern tip of Bean Hollow, where a rocky point juts out just past a sandy cove. I was hoping that this spot would give some nice deep water access, but no cigar — it did not really seem particularly deep, and some big waves kept crashing through that made fishing here pretty spooky. I did see someone catch a small cabezon when casting into the sandy cove, so guess there might be more fish if the conditions are calmer. Afterwards, I decided to try and do a bit of pocket fishing in some of the more protected areas of the park. However, it was pretty hard to get to any of the more interesting rocky spots as there were just enough waves today to make it a bit dangerous.

Unfortunately, I did not catch any fish for about 7 hours of scrambling about the rocks. Usually, dropping a bit of squid into a good tide pool can net you a good eel or rockfish, but no cigar today. Bean Hollow tends to be pretty shallow, so usually it fishes best at either high tide, when enough water comes in for the bigger fish to make their way within casting distance, or at low tide when you can walk out to deeper water. However, today the tide was falling all day to a pretty mild low tide, making the conditions pretty suboptimal when combined with the big waves. I’d probably wait for a good low tide to come back.

Before the Ball at Los Vaqueros

31 Dec 2024

Happy New Year everybody! We saw that the local management had stocked trout on the 30th, so we decided to make the drive over to do a bit of exploring! We started our day at the South Cove, throwing micetails and Kastmasters. However, it was very crowded and the fishing was slow — over the 2 hrs we were there, we didn’t see anyone catch a single trout. As a result, we decided to head up into Cowboy Cove, and hopefully try to track down some holdover trout that might be a little less lockjawed. There was a bit more life here — we saw an eagle catch a trout, a couple bass surfacing, and a few fishermen catching stripers, but the fishing was similarly slow.

A skunk of a day, but Vaqueros is always pretty enough to make it worth it.

Experimenting at Shadow Cliffs

28 Dec 2024

Lately, I’ve been trying to move away from using Powerbait because I dislike the environmental impact of dough falling off hooks and littering the shoreline. As a result, I’ve been meaning to switch to salmon eggs instead, though I’ve always wondered how they compare to Powerbait in terms of effectiveness. Today, I decided to make the drive out to Shadow Cliffs to put them to the test. I rigged a white and orange micetail on one rod, while on my second rod I hooked up a single orange salmon egg with a mini marshmallow.

I started off by fishing the Stanley Blvd shoreline. Gently tossing out my salmon egg about 30 ft netted me a small Lassen and a tiny DFG, while I didn’t get a single hit on my micetail rod.

However, the water was pretty disgusting there, as there was a lot of littered Powerbait covering the shoreline as well as a significant amount of glitter floating in with the wind. Because of that, I decided to move down to the panhandle of the lake. There, I caught two tiny DFGs on the micetail. I did get a hit on the salmon egg/marshmallow but it didn’t quite stick.

Not bad for a couple of hours time. I don’t typically fish Shadow Cliffs that often because it’s always a bit crowded for my taste, but maybe I’ll start having to visit more given my success today…

A Quarry Christmas

25 Dec 2024

Did a Quarry Lakes Christmas today with my family — they don’t fish, but they wanted to accompany me today! The water was a lot clearer than I expected, given all the recent rain. I ended up catching 1 Lassen and 5 DFGs, all on chartreuse and orange micetails. Threw back 1 of the DFGs, which was pretty promptly eaten by a waiting pelican. The DFGs are fun, but hope the local park district starts planting some of the bigger trout again.

I tried a couple spots on the backside and the peninsula, but all the fish ended up being caught in one spot. As always at Quarry, gotta keep moving until you find the trout, and then you’ll have pretty quick action.

A Muddy Day at Sandy Wool Lake

22 Dec 2024

I saw online that there was a trout plant this week at Sandy Wool Lake, so I decided to make the drive out this morning. Unfortunately seems like the website was incorrect and the last stock was December 6. Nevertheless, I fished around the lake a bit, and eventually I managed a nice trout off the side of the big hill on a chartreuse and orange micetail, casted out as far as I could into the middle of the lake. Other than that, seems like nobody else caught any fish except a couple of the egrets. They nabbed a couple tiny trout when I was there right off the shore, so I guess there are still a couple of trout left.

The water is really muddy right now. Hopefully with a little bit less rain things will clear up by the next plant.

A Couple Trout at Quarry Lakes

21 Dec 2024

Went out with a friend to Quarry Lakes today, and fished a couple spots all around the lake. For the most part seems like lures weren’t producing, but we did ok on micetails — we managed 7 trout between the two of us (3 lassens, 4 DFGs), and we lost 3 more. All of the fish were on chartreuse and orange micetails, casted out as far as we could. As always, Quarry was pretty location dependent — had to find a spot with fish.

The lake was pretty busy, and I imagine more people will be coming in with the holiday. Hope they plant a lot of trout!