Pinto Lake (Watsonville) 2/1

Spent from around 9:00AM to around 12:00PM today out on Pinto lake hunting the elusive $10 tagged trout.
Molbasser was there, and one flat-bottomed bass boat plus a good number of shore fishermen by the launch ramp.
Turns out I managed to leave at home:  GPS and FF battery.  Good thing I wasn't going out on salt water!

Molbasser pulled out one good sized trout within about 1/2 hour of arrival.  This on a set of flashers trailing a castmaster with powerbait on the treble.  I spent a good hour or so with the same setup trolling the same area to no avail.  Molbasser has the magic and I don't, it's as simple as that.

At one point I trolled up along the bass boat where the lone occupant was flipping for bass in the shore cover.  While we chatted he hooked and landed a 2.8# largemouth.  I don't know how he did the rest of the day, but that was mighty impressive.

I left skunked, but I had seen two fish and was very jealous.  Next time it will be me!

Oh, and I forgot my camera, too.  It was a bad brain day, I guess.

Lots of good advice and info from the Molbasser, too, thank you very much Chris!

Ah, that trout wasn't all that big.  If the DFG put in trout that are mostly that size, I know EXACTLY where they are ending up.  And it isn't in a fishermans frying pan......

First fish of the year for me, and that is cool.  Dinner, that is cool too.

I really need to bring my float tube out to this lake, as it really is a tubing lake more than a kayak lake (for bass).  It is essentially a shallow bowl of 25ft. max depth.  Surrounding this bowl is the ENTIRE shoreline covered by tules and brush and trees......flipping heaven.

The bass that Big Red saw get caught was the only one that guy got, as I talked to him at the launch ramp at the end of the day.

I saw a tuber who caught 4 on sunday, he knew what he was doing and had only fished a short time.

This lake is not super high pressure, but it certainly gets its share of bass pressure so you really gotta get your bait deep in the cover to be successful for bass and this is virtually impossible to do on a kayak.

Fun anyway.  I need to bring my big trout imitating swimbaits to this lake soon.

MolBasser

Pinto to be planted some time between Feb.  6th and 10th.

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/fishplant/fishplant_r3.html

-Allen

good work you guys! big red, I think us non-semi-professional fisherpersons just have to put
in our time,  .

I tried lexington this morning.  caught nothing. Right after launching, I saw a fish jump and
that got my hopes up a bit. last fish I saw,  .

I fast trolled a yozuri 2.75" rainbow pins minnow lure up the east side to the creek arm @ the south east side of the
lake. There I switched to a 4" seps watermelon dodger and a threaded half nite crawler.  Slow trolled that
through the creek arm with and without some extra lead since I think that arm is pretty deep.
Then I fast trolled the pins minnow home detouring across the face of the dam.

the water is stained about the same as last week, vis maybe 1-3 feet max.

in the creek arm I saw 2 salamanders swimming on the surface, they look just like those 'lizard' bass lures.

Also a deer swam across the creek arm in front of me.  plus it was warm and I'm almost feeling at home
in the boat now so all in all it was pretty relaxing, not an equipment freakout like the first time.

Yep, thats it.  That entire right shoreline is PRIME bass habitat.

MolBasser