Been forever and a day since I've been here on the board...dang. Kinda sad when I think about the way it was when I first discovered it all...anyways. Thanks Rob for the dedication to the site even now :-)

My Dad is wanting to plan a trip up the coast with the boat to fish. Naci, Santa margarita, and San Antonio are about the most equidistant for both of us, so I figured we stay in Paso and fish the weekend. This would be the 1st week of November.

Any reports coming in? And more importantly, any quagmire mussel regs that will somehow keep our squeaky clean vessel off the water?

I know the white bass can off at Naci, which seems like fun with light gear. But idk about late fall...any info would be awesome :-)

I don't know about Naci in November but in 2007 I did fish it in the fall pretty thoroughly. I caught spots and white bass in to October. The reports are here, scroll down:

http://www.calfishing.com/reports/nacimiento.html

1/2oz ice jigs fished in open water under seagulls worked good for me. Any shad pattern vixen / repo man can be good for spots on bluff walls and shade.

Naci goes through cycles in terms of fish size and health. The cycles follow water levels. Low water results in skinny small spotted bass. High water results in fat happy spotted bass.

2007 had really small skinny fish so the lake should be cycling up now.

As far as san antonio goes, this year saw one of the better striper bites in some time there. The fish were 8 to 15lbers. When I was fishing the lake in 2007/2008 these fish were mostly 5 to 7lbers. The fish are fat and healthy. San Antonio striper bite best in the hot summer months. November is probably a crapshoot.

San Antonio is a very strange bass lake. Sometimes you go and catch quality largemouth and smallies no problem. Other times you wonder if there's any bass in the lake at all. Only way to find out is to go.

Margarita is your classic bass lake. It was really peaking a few years ago with good number of fish over 10 being caught. I saw fish to 13lbs in there in 2008 and people have caught a few of them. Don't know what's up now but assume it's on the downside since they stopped stocking trout.

You might go and find some nice hungry 9lbers that used to be 12's. Fish that are starving are generally easy to catch. Just look at what's happening at Coyote right now, poor bass.

As far as the quagmire, you gotta look online and see what the rules are. Always changing.

Here is what I know...

San Antonio: There are Stripers bitting, heard of some catches in the Harris creek area. The LM,SM bite is pretty slow over all right now though.

Naci: As Rob says, the lake "Was" up they (Monterey County") has dumped the level way down. But the fish are healthy. Lots of 1.8-2.25 fish being caught with a good mixture of 3-4 lb spots. I have been hitting Naci a lot in the last couple of months it is a good time for sure right now. With the CBC teams happening in a couple of weeks, might be kind of hard to get a good report out of the place.

Santa Margarita: It has been tough for most this year, last year was a completely different story. Flippin is the name of the game right now. Early morning late afternoon top water.

Lopez: It has been average, Not wide open, but not as tough as Margi...

Over all, I would say that Naci is your best bet right now...

Excellent...thanks for the info guys. Never fished a lot of spots before, so I think Naci will be it then. Maybe Margi for the second day, we do a lot of flippin and shallow junk fishin where we usually fish so that sounds excellent too.
There is the same problem at Casitas this year too. Fish eating the swimbait weighing at 9, 10, fish that had the heads and fins of a 12-15lb fish. Its just ridiculous really. And now after the 15th I can only tube Calero and Anderson outta...looks like I might need to start making Delta runs this year

As far a quagmire mussels I can only talk Margarita and Lopez. Your boat needs to be clean and dry and they will perform an inspection and power wash it for you! If you're coming back they put a wire with a seal on it so you don't have to go through it again when you return. I'm not sure if they are charging this year or not since I have had a wire on it all year.

Okay. Used to that..our boat is wired for a private lake in SoCal that does the same as Casitas. Always clean and dry. Thanks Ken!

Hey, I was just out at Santa Margarita on Wednesday. It's still pretty tough, but I did get some bites back in the river. It looks really nice back there right now. Enough weeds and sticks to stay busy for days. I can't wait to get back out there and fish it a little more thoroughly.

The bites I had came flipping a brush hog in the weeds. There's a lot less thick stuff than in previous years, so when you find it, there's a good chance there's fish there.

thanks Phil! can't wait to hit it up next weekend....hopefully the stable weather will put these fish up shallow and looking for some food after our fall really got kickin this weekend.

Dockboy,
Just fished an AC Teams event yesterday at Lopez...Tough fishing over all, but there is a deep jig bite.
Also, was out at Naci last week, they have stopped dropping it (finally) so the bite has changed a little. With the way the water dropped so fast the areas that were holding good fish are out of the water, you just have to go find the schools of 2 lb'rs they have moved. CBC Teams is there this weekend coming up (7th)...sure there is going to be a pretty good turn out for it.

Thanks for the info bassin, just got back from Paso.

We fished Margi on Saturday. The weather sucked this weekend. Friday I drove into Paso with 85 degree weather at 5:30pm. We woke up to cold gray clouds and reports of rain at 55 degrees, something that was predicted to come in today in the evening. So so typical... x(
Our friend tipped us off to a decent bite at Margi recently, and we went there hoping to avoid strong winds if the storm blew through that day, which it kinda did. Tough fishing there, drizzled off and on all day. My dad managed 2 dinks on drop shot, and it was looking pretty dismal for myself. Missed a bite on a rockpile fishing a jig, then crept up to a nice rock/grass transition an hour later and got this guy with the jig.

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/8340-fishin_pic_1.jpg

His buddy picked it up on the next cast, but alas, all that came back was a scale...so very close. Wish I got a pic of that.

Today we fished Naci. Was half expecting it be raining on arrival. CBC looked like a decent turnout...Im guessing somewhere around 30 boats. Reports were also favorable for Naci, but the cold front had moved in quick and I was afraid it shut everything down. Short things short, we got 5, 4 for myself and 1 for Dad on DS. Nobody seemed to be doing a ton of catching...a nice local at the launch ramp said he and his partner got half a dozen a piece. We don't have a graph or TM on this boat, so we spent a good deal of time messing with an anchor and drifts more than fishing. But we managed and I was able to get a nice spot on the jig around 1.

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/8341-fishin_pic_2.jpg

All in all it was a tough trip, but we really liked both lakes. Its relatively equidistant to myself in Santa Cruz and my dad in SoCal, and we loved what we saw at both lakes, and especially at Santa Margarita. Thanks for all the info and thanks for reading!

Thanks for the report. Landing just a few fish has become quite a challenge around here lately.

I'm gonna give it another go tomorrow and see what I can come up with.

Hey Phil I'll be out a Margarita tomorrow. Is that where your going? I'll keep an eye out for you and say hello....

I was out there today actually. Caught one on the first cast which proved to be bad luck as they say. Swimbait fish though. Hit a floating bbz while I was getting the boat situated. Never got another bite the rest of the day.

This fish really wanted a trout. Way, way skinnier than it should be.
http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/8350-IMG_0439.JPG

Nice fish! Sad too see those big girls with long skinny bodies and big heads....shoulda been a fat fish x(

We fished that tule point, but with the wind coming down in the morning we couldn't get positioned on it right.