When we went camping earlier this year, we chose Lake Oroville as our camping site because it is famous for it’s fishing. But I forgot my fishing license and was one sad little boy for the whole week we where there. To make up for it, Joey and I planned an overnight fishing trip to San Luis Reservoir on Hwy 152, east of San Jose. The plan was to leave Friday (Oct 5) afternoon, fish all night, and come home on Saturday (Oct. 6). Little did we know the adventures that awaited us.
Friday I left work at 11:30, went home and loaded my gear into the van, triple checked to make sure I had my license and went to Joey’s house. After loading his stuff, and going to the store for a last minute bait run, we headed to Bryon’s (another friend) house. While he was gathering his gear, Joey and I worked on his computer. We where finally on the road around 3:30pm. We stopped at a bait shop in south San Jose to buy minnows, and after fighting road construction and heavy traffic, made it almost to the reservour when it started to rain. Undaunted we pressed on, and had our poles in the water by 6:15pm. The storm blew over, but it was very windy, and by 6:30, our minnow bucket had been blown over and all our minnows escaped.
We finally got a fire going by using the van as a wind break. Spirits where still high as we sheltered against the van, roasted hot links over the fire, and talked about the fish we where going to catch. That was at 7:00pm. By 10:30, the wind was howling and there where white caps on the waves. We finally gave up and crawled into the van were we rocked to sleep by the wind pounding on the van. We got up every couple of hours to check our fishing lines, and generally just tried to keep warm.
Finally around 4:30a, the wind died and we went back to fishing. We fished all morning. I was the only one who had a bite all morning, but my line broke and the fish got away, taking Joey’s favorite top water lure with it. Finally, at 9:30, we gave up, loaded the van and headed out. We where home by 11:30
We had a great time! We are already planning our next trip. But I think we’re going to make it a day trip, and we’ll keep a better eye on our minnows, and I’m sure we’ll check the weather report before we go.
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