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I hate fishing reports!  Their absolutely worthless.  Just like weather forecasts, the only thing a fishing report tells you is what happened yesterday, which is usually the only part of their job a weather person can get right.  Telling you what happened yesterday.  Their good at that! 

If I believed every fishing report I’ve ever read, I probably would be living in my truck, out of work and out of money, having to be at the next best fishing spot.  On the flip side of that coin, if I never went fishing because of a bad report or bad fishing conditions, I probably never would have caught half of the fish that I have, or even have gone fishing at all.

Hence what happened Sunday.  If you read this, you would say to yourself, “why in the hell would I want to go there?”  That is exactly why we chose to go there.  Seeing as how it was a three-day weekend, and the other local area bass lakes were apparently fishing really well, we decided to go to Lake Hodges.  We knew we would have the place to ourselves.  And we were right, well, mostly.   

After spending the first few hours searching the flats for carp and coming up empty, Kory suggested we go Bass fishing.  It didn’t take much convincing, as there’s no reason to ever beat a dead horse.   

Upon arrival at our very first bass spot, we noticed a ton of shad in the water hovering over a submerged rocky point.  Within 2 minutes of our first casts being made, the first fish was brought to hand.  They were there and eating.  A few casts later I came tight, real tight!  Fishing with an 8wt rod, 20lb tippet, and a fuzzabou shad, I hooked a fish I could not stop.  The next thing I knew, the fish had wrapped me up in the sticks.  After some very careful boat  maneuvering, and a fine net job by Kory, the big girl was brought to hand.  Exactly 6 lbs on the boga grip.  A trophy from a bastard of a lake to catch fish.  Especially on the fly.  But that’s why we fish there, every cast represents a shot for a trophy caliber bucket mouth. 

A few more for fish were brought to hand from that spot, and once again all was right with the world.  And as if we didn’t already experience enough excitement, we were treated to the rare sight of a bobcat out wondering around in the middle of the day. Wild Bobcat California Lake Hodges

(Notice the Tiger like stripes on the back legs)  Really cool to see.  Just goes to show you how accurate fishing reports can be.  Like you always hear fishing guides say, “You should have been here yesterday.”  Well, I’m glad I wasn’t.  I’m glad I was here today.