Well I went up north to the famous "Clear Lake" for a 9 day trip starting on Friday @ 18:00 of the labor day weekend... My Cousin and I arrived at 04:00, we stopped in a turn out after 10 hours of straight driving from 18:00 - 0400. We pulled over in a turn out that happened to be directly after a canyon, and I do mean a canyon... Sheer walls on either side so that when the cars went by they sounded like jet fighters going trough. I didn't get a wink of sleep and ended up at this time to be up 24 hours ( I worked before leaving). My Cousin Vu slept for 2 hours. We go into the local town in search of breakfast... we end up at a place that looked like a house turned into a restaurant. We ordered new York steak and eggs... Our steaks tasted like they were boiled, and the tabasco sauce was spoiled to the point that it was rancid, (I know because I had it all over my hash browns and eggs) I ate 1 piece of toast as did Vu, a cup of coffee... $50.. We launched at about 08:00 and hooked a few LMB, the problem here was that they were all were about 5's... 5 inchers that is... We established our camp site around 12:00 as the temperature was hovering at about 103. We set up camp and just relaxed as much as we could... There were was a party of campers of about 40, and they partied until 04:00 Sunday morning... (No Sleep again for me, Vu slept due to being drunk)We went out fishing again... My $1300.00 of electronic upgrades including 2 Humminbird Solix 12 units and my Min Kota Ultrex Trolling motor malfunctioned... ( 2nd time on the water). again we were only able to catch a few tiny bass... Yes to be expected with the temperature of the water being 79 degrees. (We thought that because we were far up north the temperature would be a lot cooler). So we struggle until Tuesday morning when we cant take it any longer and hoping with the cooler temperatures at lake Sonoma that we would have a better time there... We start back across the lake, the wind came up and we were in white caps and BIG swells, I'm foolishly NOT wearing a life vest and Can't swim, I am now afraid for my life being concerned that the boat would capsize. We made it back, pack up and leave for Sonoma.
We start the journey and I am at a 1/4 tank of fuel, I see only 1 fueling station after about 30 miles of road, it is really small in respect to the maneuverability for my truck and boat, so I tell Vu, lets just look down the highway for another gas station... He says No, we don't know how how far the next station is, just suck it up and use your trailering skills and get gas here. (It turns out to be about 70 miles of twisting and turning roads to the next lake. Had I not of gotten Fuel there we would have been stuck without gas. So we eventually get to Sonoma lake... There are few directions to where we are to launch the boat, finally we find the launch ramp and load all of our equipment aboard the boat (The camp sites are all "Boat In", we get to our site, have to beach the boat, tie it to a tree trunk and then hike all of our gear up to the camp site, there are no toilet facilitates, this includes our tent, chairs, sleeping bags, cooking equipment and ice chests of food for the next 3 days. When we arrive and the sky has an orange haze to it, but the fires are a ways off and no threat to us. We tool around the lake for the day fishing with no bites... We then re-beach the boat and chill about 17:00 cook dinner and the try our hand at catfish in the night... Vu gets a few bites (Me nothing) and he busts off every time. Finally its Lights ought at 22:00.
I'm up @ 05:00 Thursday morning but reluctant to get up... I lay awake until 08:00,I find that the sky's are orange and it looks like it is like 19:00 on a typical summer night finally I rouse Vu and ask him if we can call the vacation to an end...
To my surprise Vu says yeah, let's go. We load everything back on the boat, and it is so high that I have to stand to see where I'm going, We use the one electronic that is working great "The Way Point"
feature, I start back to the launch ramp, we get about a 1//2 mile and we come into a smoke wall that descends from the top of the heavens to the surface of the lake, I can't see more than ten feet in front of me, I had to go by the way point that I had fortunately marked a the loading ramp, I seam to have circled the waypoint at least 10 times until I seen 10 feet away the railing of the launch ramp. I actually feared for my life the second time in my trip... The return trip was uneventful... (Thank God)
The reason that my post is here on Perris lakes site is this...
I was very discouraged about fishing after my botched trip, but I had the plan to go out on my day off on Thursday, I was debating on DLV, SW, and PL, I was reluctant to get out of bed until 08:00, I went out to hook my boat to the truck only to discover that the truck battery was dead, I spent the next hour getting a battery and finally hit the lake at 11:00.Started fishing for LMB on the far east end and progressed to the South east end, ended up catching 3 Small LMB and 2 Bluegill.
Shout out to Brian and Henry for giving my tackle and bait!

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Water temperature was 80.1