I planned a trip with some friends to visit Lake San Antonio. We rented a cabin and headed up friday. The plan was to check out the lake and see if I could get some stripers.

Reading all the other reports, i took the tips and info and tried to apply them. One thing that i was told was that the water level was only 35% of where it should be. When i was trolling around, there was one point on the lake, in the middle of the lake and i metered the bottom being only 5ft down. I am talking about the middle of the lake and 5 ft of water.

Friday: arrived at lake around 7pm. It was hot, around 105 degrees at 7pm. Hit the water and started trolling, didn't see much and stopped trolling around 8pm when the sun was almost setting. Anchored at Harris Creek and threw out a few lines for catfishing. The catfishing was steady, except i made a mistake on 2 rods and had only 4lb line on them. I didn't realize harriss creek was going to have so many trees and branches so i lost many fish to the trees. Headed back to the cabin to meet all the guys that showed up.

Sat: 6am, hit the lake trolling solo. All my friends slept in. I didn;t meter much the first hour, found one area where my meter was blowing up. In a span of 200ft, i must have marked hundred of arcs. Next thing i knew, fish were blowing up and jumping all around me. However, the fish were not stripers, they were LMB or some other fish. I passed that area a few times, and they wanted nothing of my troll. Then I trolled south towards the dam. Metered fish a bit deeper around 30-50 ft so i busted out the DR. went round and round, but still no bites! it was close to 11am, and i got a text from my buddies that they wanted to hit the lake. I picked them up and since the troll has been slow and they just wanted action, i took them catfishing for the next 2 hours. Noon came, we headed back for lunch. From there, we chilled until 5pm and headed back out. Started to troll and then got hung, then lost my urig retriever. Since dinner was coming up, we decided since dinner was coming up, we just drove around the lake and then ate dinner till about 9pm and headed back out and went catfishing. Picked up a few and it was close to midnight so we called it and headed back in.

Sun: hit the lake at 7am since we had a late night goofing around. went to another area and once again, metered an explosion of arcs. It was just amazing how many fish were there, but no stripers. fish jumping every few seconds for about 500 feet, but no takers. I did get 3 hits on the u-rig but couldn't stick it. They seemed like smaller lmb. I thought about trying to target them, but i really wanted stripers.

Trolled until noon for nothing and by then it was time to check out and head home.

I really could not find large shad balls, wheter it be deep or shallow.

San Antonio is a very shallow lake compared to the la lakes. From the main marina to directly across the lake, the deepest part was maybe 45 feet. I could be 200-300 feet off the shore and its only 25feet.

I don't know if that had anything to do with shifting the shad and the stripers, but i just couldn't find them. I need more practice to understand the elusive striper.

Water temp was 71 in the morning and by late afternoon would be around 82. Very little wind, water color was a tint of green, vis maybe 3 feet. The staff said that the lake was extremely low due to some work being done on a pipe. It was only 35% full, so maybe that did something. Anyways, getting skunked on the striper just makes me want it that much more!

Will def need to plan another trip up there.