Don Pedro Reservoir
3/24/18
Water temp 54-58
Air Temp 40-55°
Wind 5-15 at times
Lake level 90%
Weather frontal/post frontal
Water visibility 0-12′
I fished the Future Pro Tour event at Don Pedro yesterday with my friend Josh Parris.
This was my 1st time fishing the lake so I was excited to fish new water. There has been several events at this lake in the past month with very impressive fish being caught and heavy bags being brought to the scales.
When I arrived the weather was pretty mild for the most part. Cool with clear skies with occasional clouds passing. It has been raining for the last few weeks so a break in the weather was good to see. With all the rain and water coming down from the mountains, the reservoir was near full. There was a lot of water coming in from the Moccasin river due to a minor dam malfunction the day before.
Our 1st stop on the lake was on the main body fishing main lake points close to spawning flats, searching for those transitional fish getting ready to move up. I threw an A rig for the 1st part of the morning without any luck, I quickly switched to a canopy grenades 1/2 oz football jig. I picked up my first fish about a hour in, on the jig. At this point we realized that the reaction bite was not going to play a role in the fishing so we focused on jigs and worm fishing. We moved from points and worked our way back into the coves. We were definitely getting more bites in mid range water in about 15′ on drop shot and Neko rigs. The water clarity on the main lake was really clear.
Early afternoon we decided to make a run up river to look for active creeks and waterfalls. Unfortunately once we got into the narrows the water turned into chocolate milk quick. We decided to still spend some time fishing it . We picked up a few on dark colored worms, but the fishing was tough. We decided to head back to the main lake and continue fishing how we were earlier in the day. We’ve managed to catch quite a few fish but the size was not nearly what we were hoping for.
While fishing in the back of a cove , we accidentally stumbled across a bed that had fish on it. They were not fully locked on the bed yet, so they were a little bit skittish. I anticipate the bed fishing to get really good soon.
With about an hour to go a weather system moved in and started dumping rain and hail with heavy winds. We decided to for fish close to the marina to avoid making a long run in that whether . All in all it was a pretty tough day, not what we were hoping for. But with this warm weather and full moon coming I anticipate the fishing to really improve . Our total weight for the tournament was 10 66 lbs. Ouch!
