Planning to try it out later in the week but would be interested in hearing from anyone who has fished there recently.  Thanks in advance for your input.

 

Fished Grant Lake early morning Sat and today (Mon).  Grant Lake is really more of a large pond rather than a proper lake.  It is situated at about 1500' of elevation and is a part of Grant Park, which is located about 8 miles up Mt. Hamilton Rd. (from Alum Rock).

 

Water level is lower than usual (duh!).  Water is pretty clear despite having a bunch of moss. I fished the west bank on Friday because it had a more interesting shoreline, but that side of the lake has a very gentle slope throughout, so most of the fishable water is pretty shallow.  Managed to pick up a single bass off a mostly submerged bush using a small, 1/8 oz black spinnerbait.  When the sun rose a bit higher, there was no shade to speak of, so I left fairly early.

 

Monday I fished the eastern bank which remained partially shaded throughout most of the early morning.  Picked up a bass adjacent some tules but otherwise not much action.

 

I mostly use spinnerbaits or lipless crankbaits when I'm trying to cover a lot of water quickly, but will return to try wacky rigged senkos and ned rigged crayfish on the next outing.

sounds like a blast!!  see any wild hogs?

2 hours ago, Darth-Baiter said:

sounds like a blast!!  see any wild hogs?

Thanks, no wild hogs but lots of deer and turkeys!

 

BTW, tried ned rigged crayfish today and it didn't work very well because of all the moss.  Will try a drop shot rig with some buoyant worms next.  Hopefully, the moss will only collect on the sinker, but not the worm.

Caught this one at Grant Lake (in SJ) this morning.  Stick bait on a drop shot rig which worked much better than a ned rig on the mossy bottom.  BTW, Grant Lake is just a few minutes from home, so I can pretty much go fishing any time!

Cottontail rabbit and a bunch of wild pigs at Grant Lake.

Oh I just love all the pigs at Coyote Lake. Not! They ransack the campgrounds every night and there's poop everywhere.

 

I've been meaning to check out Grant Lake. Coyote Creek between San Jose and Morgan Hill is DRY by the way. I called a few places and they don't even seem to know what happened. Dead fish, nice stench. 

 

Few days ago it was fine, now no water. Not good.

Fishing has been tough since summer started as the fish don't seem to be in the shallows as often (bank fishing only because no boats, kayaks, float tubes, etc. allowed).  Caught this one on a 40(+) year old bait that I bought off ebay.  But I swapped in a modern ball bearing swivel and larger colorado blade, so think of it as a finesse swim jig on a safety pin type spinner assembly. Heck of a fight on 4 lb. test, but finesse seems to be the only thing working.

Is there good shore access there? I guess if it's low you can probably walk anywhere though. Pay to park?

4 hours ago, schplurg said:

Is there good shore access there? I guess if it's low you can probably walk anywhere though.

Most of the western shore is not accessible - fenced off and marked keep out.  Tules on a lot of the eastern shore but with a fair number of accessible spots to fish.  Gently sloping shoreline with lots of moss and other vegetation near the shore.  It's not any easy-to-fish pond to be sure and it gets a lot of fishing pressure on weekends.  I use finesse techniques successfully but the moss and the weeds along the shoreline make landing the fish on light line quite a challenge.  Free but limited parking.  On weekends, one needs to arrive promptly at 8:00 am (opening time) to ensure getting a parking spot.

Tough fishing during the heat of summer but am able to catch the occasional 2 lb fish.  Ran into some other experienced fishermen, one of whom caught a 5 pounder here.  Unfortunately, all their top spots are above water so no help there.  Strategy now is to slow fish senkos in likely spots and if that doesn't work, then carpet bomb as much water as possible with spinnerbaits and lipless crankbaits.  If it were easy, then what would be the point?

Stay at it!!!  And well done.  My hike in lake is dry.

Updating with latest catches.  The tiny bass was caught on a 4" senko which was bigger than the fish!  Caught the frog this morning.  Unfortunately, the lake is suffering from toxic algae bloom and "natural" fish die-off, so the fishing is going to suck going forward.

On 10/31/2021 at 12:35 PM, QED said:

Updating with latest catches.  The tiny bass was caught on a 4" senko which was bigger than the fish!  Caught the frog this morning.  Unfortunately, the lake is suffering from toxic algae bloom and "natural" fish die-off, so the fishing is going to suck going forward.

 

We just can't win in the Bay Area anymore

 

8 hours ago, QED said:

 

Hate to repeat myself but...

 

On 11/1/2021 at 7:15 PM, schplurg said:

 

We just can't win in the Bay Area anymore

 

Natural cycle? As in "we don't address environmental problems in this lake so this happens all the time"? I don't know I'm just asking.

It happens.  I saw it at Clearlake once.  The area smelled so bad from the fish pushed up on shore. 
 

my local hike in place just got sterilize by nature.  I hope they bounce back.