Diamond Valley Lake 6/10
Breakwall Wook drove to the house from the South Bay for the 40-minute ride out this morning in my Jeep to Diamond Valley Lake.
The Breakwall Crew noticed 45 years ago when we visited largemouth bass lakes such as Casitas and Piru, we always had more action during May Gray June Gloom. At DVL, I always had good results during such conditions except once when there was a low pressure moving in behind the stratus. Today was perfect with the drizzles at 03:45.
The other thing I watch out for at DVL is a tournament. Since I only have Saturdays to goof off, that is prime tourney day. A check of their calendar revealed there was competition last Saturday and there will be again next Saturday. All clear for today.
I like to park in line an hour early so that we can get through the fee kiosk and start hiking ASAP in order to be first to our chosen shoreline. Usually, I will be 2 or 3 behind but today we were first. Nobody showed up until fifteen minutes before the 05:30 opening. We both thought it peculiar.
We normally beeline right past Third Cove to the main point then work our way back to the lot but today we decided to try another approach. We zoomed left toward the dam behind the marina office where neither of us had fished before. There, we found rather shallow water with flooded mule fat and tamarisk. While working our way to Crawdad Point while finessing Max Scents and other lively plastic baits Texas-style, a sheer wall prevented a direct path to deeper water.
We backtracked a little then hiked straight up to the road and took a small trail to a good-looking zone at the point. Problem is after two hours neither of us had a bite.
We met up to commiserate and fan cast another maybe hour before we decided to move toward the left to another deep spot about twenty minutes hike.
Another 90 minutes of casting along a hundred yards of fantastic looking largemouth habitat resulted in zilch. We saw a couple boats around and they got skunked too. An angler passed us, saying he caught one bass but I think he was BSing. Even the last quarter moon straight up didn’t help
At eleven we said heck with this and headed home.
The weather report this afternoon had a low pressure coming in but not until tomorrow Sunday, 24 hours later. Lowering barometer always kills the bite. Another hypothesis we developed is, if nobody is in line an hour before the lake opens, go home. Don’t spend the $31 entry fee and parking for two anglers just for nothing. Nobody eagerly awaiting early entry indicates the locals know the dump is going to suck that day.
We made a pact to visit next March during pre-spawn to spawn instead of 3 months past post-spawn. Stratus, sunshine we don’t care. We will be there as long as there is no tournament.