Spent much of the first half of Saturday fruitlessly searching for wade-in access along Putah Creek, one of the few local waters that offer trout fishing and probably the only one that can be attacked with flies. Chris and I drove up to the Winters area, where the creek feeds into Lake Solano, a bend that is quite wide, and since the water gets warm, the trout are pushed to the deeper sections. We spend a bit of time there, but nothing. Since we were in the area, we continued on to Lake Berryessa, which feeds Putah Creek.

At Berryessa, we fished a bit from shore even through it is a large reservoir better approached with a boat and best trolled. We hit a few points, but only a few small fish followed our lures, with a few strikes, but our lure were bit too big for their mouths. We probably spend more time cleaning water weed off our lures than anything else. I was in the process of retrieving an obnoxious fluorescent orange Rooster Tail lure with the expectation of pulling water weed off it, when I found a smallmouth bass — maybe eight inches long — at the end of my line. Guess that was to be my only “catch of the day,” even if it didn’t give even an inkling of a fight!