Barret Bassin' with MiM and Darkshadow 5/7/2011

[tacklejunkie]

Hit Lake Barrett Reservoir with forum member "MiM", also on Darkshadows' ticket reservation. Had heard of the crazy fishing down there and couldn't pass it up, akin to the stuff of the Angler's Lake days.

I was not to be disappointed.

Left home at 1am to pick up Mike and then headed for San Diego.
Got in line about 3:30 and by 4am everyone was bustling about sharing detailed topographical maps and fishing info! Very cool set of people out there. (Well, most of them)


So I unload and launch the Kayak and tell Mike that I need to go ditch him for a few minutes and do some scouting while he builds his tube and gets ready to launch.
I was on the water in the dark so decided to just paddle around a bit and warm up. The water was hotter than the air, and steam was rising off the lake. It was a bit early and I felt a bit off balance in the kayak and everything just felt weird in general.


Paddled around to scope out the terrain.
started heading for a spot I was told was holding fish. Tied on some lures and crimped the barbs.






When I got to the spot, I noticed a weedy point and began to fish it with lures.
First fish I got on the Shellcracker mini, but he jumped off before the pic. I took a pic of his house structure and the lure instead lol. I realized I Was gonne have to keep my slack out of my line all day and crank the fish in on the barbless hooks fast.


Once I paddled over to some good structure I saw fish jumping. Few casts with the buzzbomber and I was on.
That's funny, they don't stock trout in this lake.


Which gave me the mean idea of introducing the Barret fish to my barbless Lunker Punker. This fish actually towed me around in my tube! First LMB on a suface trout.


I was pretty content with those lure fish. Wanted to stick some on one of my favorite baits that I spent a few hundred on a combo just for. The C-bait laid into them for the next hour or so. Badoosh!


Relax and smell the coffee.


Angle one


Angle two. Modeling the kayak angles with the fish. Too much fishy time on my hands.


C-bait rulez. I worked them and lost a few. Brought OK size and fight fish.


Then I came back to the truck to see how Mike was doing. He said he caught a few and was cursing his fins. I convinced him to come back out to the other side of the lake to see what was popping. Here's Mike fondling my C-bait rig.

[tacklejunkie]

Kinda reminds me of Veil


Towards the boathouse


When we were kicking our way over, I noticed Mike was empty handed but had four rods in the holder. I noted "throw out a worm while you kick.. and drag". Within 20 seconds, Fish on for Mike!




Yeah that's right you other tubers, ownage.


Sup now?


Mike tossed the worm back out and on the drop... tick tick tap zing!


He also hit a few c-bait fish himself today. His first on this type bait!


Then the bass were in big trouble. I got out the jig.
I must have poked 10-15 bass on the jig right here alone. When you use a barbless jig, the weedguard still holds the jig in the fishes mouth. I didn't lose any of the jig fish I hooked at all that day. From now on, all my jigs will be fished barbless!
Here we go. Each of these is a diff fish by yours truly.
I tried to take a picture of each fish, with the structure I caught it from. Some of the pictures it's obvious where I threw the lure to get the fish.


Here's one off the tree island in the middle of the lake. Haha














Landing for the day


Some views of the lake and Dam.








Canyon behind the dam


Creek coming out of the dam. Wonder if there's any secret trouts down there!


they don't let you out the gate until they are ready


Bye Barret! We had a blast! Thanks again Darkshadow for offering your spots on Fishingnetwork. All those whom passed them up missed out! I absolutely pegged them! Good fishing with you too Mike and nice meeting you. Thanks for the new 6" lunker punker you gave me! I will put it to good use!
I have blisters on my hands from casting, no joke!
Can't wait to try and do it again next year.

The day after Barrett (today) I nailed a good 4lber at DVL on my new triple trout too. Check out my DVL reports.

[WARRIORMIKE]

yea Ive heard you can throw anything out there and they'll nail them.Good Job!

[tacklejunkie]

I catch a lot of C-bait fish.
But I have never, never seen a fish almost swallow the C-bait like they did at Barrett.

They are hungry.
Must be a ton of them in there. The jig fishing was WO. All the structure held a jig fish. Every pocket. Every rock. every ledge.
Every point that you could see in the hills and guess was under water had fish stacked.

[MiM]

Great report TJ. Thanks Dark Shadow and Tacklejunkie for the chance to fish Barrett on opening weekend. The fin malfunction was just a minor detail. I learned alot from Tacklejunkie and it was super cool of him to take someone he'd never met before fishing. (almost) Everyone we talked to were super cool like Indymusky who just came out of the dark and handed us a topo map for the lake and shared some spots with us. All in all it was an awesome day and I had a blast. I hope to fish with you again sometime Tacklejunkie

[DarkShadow]

No problem guys, I hope you enjoyed yourselves out there.

"The Big B" can be very special at times, and I had another great opening Saturday.

[Ifishtoolittle]

Bass ENVY!!!!!!!! WHY? WHY must you post such an epic report? Now I have the itch, the itch to go fish!

[Sublime-Steve]

ugh.. that was nice... how do i fish there?

[sonarbp]

Great report guys!! I was out there on Sunday and it was still WIDE OPEN!!!
Even on the gills!


Barrett is a very special lake and if you guys have a chance to fish it DO IT!!


Still sorting through all the pics from my trip so look for my report soon! Might be a few days going back to Barrett tomorrow!

Laters,

sonarbp

[M@M]

WOW! Nice report and pics! What a great day you had.