Fishing Report: O’Neill Forebay September 23, 2018
With my boat still out of commission, I wasn’t planning on fishing O’Neill Forebay last Sunday. I was going to fix my leaking seal on the boat but I got a last minute call from my good buddy Xiong asking if I wanted to hit the lake with him. I haven’t been on the water for the longest time now so it was a YES. We took our boys too and we were on our way.
I normally like to hit the water before sunrise. It was late already. The sun was blazing down. Water surface was dead calm. No wind blowing. It was two in the afternoon. We hit the lake at the worst time.
It’s been three months since I fished O’Neill Forebay and the lake has changed dramatically since then. You can see dense weed growth near the shoreline. Plus the bait fish have moved in. Recent reports from FishAholics members have suggested the fall pattern is already in full swing. Many have reported excellent fishing the past few weeks.
The first location we tried was the deep channel over by the Medeiros side. We focused on trolling the Atlas Umbrella Rigs. We weren’t sure what colors would work best so we tied on the shad, white and blue shad colors.
We started trolling at 2.0-2.5 mph in 17’ of water along the ledges. We let out 100’ and about 5 minutes in, we already hooked up into a striper but it was a small one. We trolled back and forth in the area for ten more stripers before moving on to the dam area.
The dam produced a lot more fish than the channel. The schools seemed to be grouped up but scattered along the levee wall. You would spot them stacked up and seconds later hook up. With each marked school, we were almost guaranteed to hook into a striped bass.
Rods would go off simultaneously. At one point we had 5 fish floppy inside the boat from all three rods going off. Hooking into doubles became the norm.
The kids had a blast reeling in the heavy fighters. Even the smaller striped bass put up a good fight. Most of the fish choked the baits and were hooked deep inside the mouth. These stripers were actively feeding and fattening up.
We found out what they were eating when one of the stripers spit out its food. They were gorging on threadfin shad. Great! Because our Atlas Rigs had on the same shad sizes and colors. Match the hatch some would say.
The bite was great but we found ways to make it even better. Xiong would slow the boat down once in a while after seeing a school of stripers. He would speed up again and we would get hookups as we slowed down or after we sped up again.
We repeated the same technique over and over again. We tied on different colored swimbaits on the Atlas Rigs. So two of the swimbaits would be a shad color while the third was white. This difference also increased our hookup ratio because they began striking the white swimbait more often.
The dam produced well for us but we wanted to see if we could locate bigger fish elsewhere. We tried the middle of the lake and began hooking into fish. Most of the catches were about the same sizes between 16”-18”.
It wasn’t until the wind started picking up and the waves started to show that the bigger striped bass began biting. We started hooking into more 18”ers with the biggest about 21”. Whenever you fish O’Neill Forebay, there’s usually a storm after the calm. That storm being the striper bite. So after a calm afternoon with no wind or waves, you can expect a better bite if the winds do pickup.
With only four hours on the water we landed over 50+ fish using the Atlas Rigs. O’Neill Forebay usually comes to life near the fall season. The vegetation provides cover for bait fish. Which in turns concentrates the baitfish to the area and attracts stripers that migrate in and out of the California Aqueduct system. If you’re looking for a place to catch fish easily, O’Neill Forebay is the place.
Now you know. Go get em!
You can find the same gear I use using the affiliate links below.
–Okuma Cold Water line counter reel
–Daiwa Wilderness Trolling Rod
–TackleBuilders Atlas Umbrella Rig
