Los Banos, CA (November 5, 2025) — The striper fishing in the big lake had been improved but in the last week anglers have had to work harder for limits of school sized fish, while the Forebay action has had good numbers of a smaller grade of fish on topwater, ripbaits , Arigs and trolled lures.
Trollers are just doing decent at best working the main lake on flats at the 60-70 foot range with regular stick baits for a few fish per boat. Jigging has been fairly slow with the scattered moving fish prefering trolled baits in Shad colors. I scouted one day last week for 12 fish to 23” using Lucky Crafts in Shad colors . It was a slow bite and the fish were mostly spread out over flats . Covering water was the best tactic..
The new YouTube fishing channel “ Catch America” had a filming crew, headed up by fishing personality , Cal Kellogg – out on the lake Wednesday to do an episode on big stripers and how I fish for them. We were out doing some random filming on the water, trolling with just one rod to possibly catch a schoolie striper while they shot the footage- when we suddenly got a very hard hit. Robert Barcellos , one of the crew, got the pole and 4 big runs later we landed and quickly released the 41”, 26.5 lb striper. Funny, got the whole thing on tape- and we weren’t really even fishing at the time. A big fish episode- and we got one! Incredible story.
The full moon will be affecting the bite this week and a storm is forecast to be heading into the area so I’m predicting a tougher bite later this week until the next stable window.
Water levels in the big lake have fluctuated slightly up and down- but the main lake is still in the 1,050,000 acre foot range- about 50% . Visibility is improved to 5’ with the dying algae breaking up. Water temps are around 68 degrees or so.
Never give up!
Check out my San Luis Reservoir video reports on the new YouTube “Catch America” fishing channel – for more info. Subscribe for a wide array of trout, king salmon and striper weekly reports by top guides.
San Luis Reservoir striped bass guided trips info- rogergeorgeguideservice.com or (559) 905-2954.
