Fishing in the Rain?

Hi everyone,

It's been awhile since I've gone fishing and I finally have time off this coming weekend. Trying to combine an almond blossom cruise with the wife on Sunday with a fishing trip on Saturday. How do the Valley Lakes fish after a rain? I only have experience with Del Valle (terrible after a rain) and San Pablo (okay for worm and PowerBait). No clue on Camanche, Don Pedro, New Melones, etc....

My experience has been that the bigger lakes are less muddy after a big rain, so I've been going to place like Camanche, Don Pedro, or New Melones after a heavy downpour.  Fishing in the rain is a cool experience though, if it's not windy I'm pretty happy to be out in a light drizzle trolling for trout in my drysuit.   In the case of a muddy water accept that powerbait is the way to go and just go with it.

Thanks for the response AlsHobieOutback! Much appreciated. My main goal is to get the wife into some beautiful almond blossoms, the kayak fishing is a just side bonus. Happy wife, happy life.

Happy Valentine's day everyone!

I just fished Camanche yesterday with my pops in his PB. We slow trolled the houseboats near the north shore launch and then east up the narrows into the river canyon for a bit. Not a lot of action, but the water looked good. I was also impressed by the blossoms on my drive from Concord along 160, 12, and liberty road.

$19 for a day pass, not sure what the launch fee is for a kayak as it’s been a while since I launched the plastic there.

We went out for a drive Saturday morning to Tracy area to check out the blossoms. They are about another week for peak bloom, but there were a few early bloomers. Simply amazing, we truly are blessed! If this was in Japan or China, there would be thousands of visitors. Here in CA, it was only us. I couldn't even get my teenage sons to get out of the car. 

Oh yeah, the kayak fishing part. I decided to make the most out of the short weather window and went to Quarry Lakes on Sunday, since it was close and all I wanted was to get out. It was a beautiful morning, sunny and still. Around 1pm, someone turned on the fan and I headed in. Skunked but happy I was able to get on the water.

Last year in the spring I was on highway one traveling south between HMB and Santa Cruz.  In an area where there was limited access to pull over, there were a bunch of cars causing a traffic jam trying to squeeze into space on the side of the highway.  I noticed everyone was clamoring over a fence into a field to snap pics of themselves or their kids, playing in a sparse patch of wild flowers.  I think someone geotagged it or posted it on one of those “untouched outdoor gems” instagram accounts. Anyway, everyone was out there letting the world know how enriched and amazing their lives are on the gram. If they had actually got out to explore and enjoyed the world naturally, they would have found acres of that stuff all to themselves a couple miles up the road.

Glad you got out there and had it all to yourself. 

We went out for a drive Saturday morning to Tracy area to check out the blossoms. They are about another week for peak bloom, but there were a few early bloomers. Simply amazing, we truly are blessed! If this was in Japan or China, there would be thousands of visitors. Here in CA, it was only us. I couldn't even get my teenage sons to get out of the car. 

Funny you should mention this, as my wife is going to Japan in a few weeks to see the cherry blossoms...