A TROUT TIP GONE AWRY

JOINING TOM, DICK & HARRY AT STIENSTRA’S HOT FISHING LAKE LOS VAQUEROS TROUT TRIP FUELED BY CHILDHOOD SPORTS SECTION IDOL’S TIP

By Chris Cocoles

LIVERMORE—As we headed along a lonely road bound for what Google Maps suggested was the fastest route to our fishing destination, I wondered where everyone else was.

Granted, it was a frigid Saturday morning on Thanksgiving weekend, so it was understandable that during this pandemic folks would be staying under the covers in their postholiday slumber.

But it also seemed like my sister Charlene and I were on the road to nowhere (spoiler alert: we were). A dead end awaited our arrival. Google Maps had us taking the North Livermore Road exit off Interstate 580. We followed the directions, eventually passed by the Livermore Pleasanton Rod and Gun Club, a horse farm and then a gated barrier that was the end of our route.

We got back to 580, typed in Los Vaqueros Reservoir instead of my original destination, “Los Vaqueros Watershed and Marina,” and we were

Cars line up on a late fall Saturday morning to enter the Livermore area’s Los Vaqueros Reservoir, where the banks of the lake were packed with anglers out for trout. (CHRIS COCOLES)

Even in the temperate Bay Area, this late November morning was a frigid one. (CHARLENE KING)

Operated by the Contra Costa Water District, Los Vaqueros was a popular Bay Area destination this past fall thanks to several California Department of Fish and Wildlife and private trophy rainbow releases. (CHRIS COCOLES)

on the right path toward the south entrance to the lake. Then we quickly realized that everyone else wasn’t in bed but also seeking a trout bonanza.

A WISE MAN’S ADVICE As a future journalist I always devoured the newspaper’s local sports section. My family subscribed to the San Francisco Examiner, then the afternoon counterpart to the morning San Francisco Chronicle, and each Thursday one of the first pages I’d turn to was outdoor writer Tom Stienstra’s fishing report.

As a kid, pestering my dad and friends’ dads to take us fishing at a Bay Area lake was commonplace, and I’d show them what Stienstra’s best bet of the weekend would be. Stienstra wasn’t the sports reporter who influenced me to get into the business, but he still had an effect on who I’d become professionally.

And though I’ll always be a sports beat writer at heart, I can call myself an outdoors writer colleague – but hardly his equal – to Stienstra, now the longtime outdoors columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Anyway, he still has an influence on me. During my visit to the Bay Area and wanting to redeem myself for a fishless outing to Pleasanton’s Shadow Cliffs Regional Recreation Area (California Sportsman, December 2020), I stumbled onto a Stienstra-penned column on best Bay Area trout fishing options for Thanksgiving weekend.

I told my sister I felt like a kid again grabbing the paper off the porch to read Stienstra’s fishing report. He listed Los Vaqueros, located between Livermore and Brentwood to the north, as one of the best options to catch a trout due to several scheduled plants from both the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and private trophy trout stockings from the lake’s concessionaire, the Contra Costa Water District.

My sister, who is not an angler but loves to be outside, agreed to take the early-morning trip with me, so after our Google Maps detour got us back on track, we arrived at the Los Vaqueros Watershed sign around 7:14 a.m. And there were the cars ahead of us. A lot of cars.

WAIT YOUR TURN We methodically waited to get through the main entrance leading into the park. There were probably 30 vehicles in front of us, and the wait was agonizing once I grasped the idea that this must be a productive fishery.

We passed the time away listening to news radio station KCBS, and at 7:35 wouldn’t you know it but none other than KCBS correspondent Tom Stienstra (you can’t make up this stuff!) came on with an outdoors report about the start of recreational crabbing season.

Anyway, the temperature gauge on Charlene’s car hit 27 degrees, and my sibling’s tolerance level for cold weather isn’t great, so she wondered if this wasn’t the best decision. Then there was how painfully slow that vehicles were moving through the kiosk. One jovial but frustrated guy got out of his car and, while doing his best to socially distance, struck

BACK TO WHERE IT STARTED

SAN FRANCISCO—Lake Merced was once editor Chris Cocoles’s go-to fishing destination, only about a 15-minute drive from his childhood home in San Bruno.

During a recent visit to the Bay Area, Cocoles and his dog Emma made a quick stop at Lake Merced – he didn’t have any fishing gear with him – but he took a walk down memory lane at a place that, from a fishing perspective, has seen better days. -CS

Lake Merced had just a handful of anglers giving it a go on this gorgeous fall morning. (CHRIS COCOLES)

One memory I have of fishing here was hearing the roars of lions at the nearby San Francisco Zoo. (CHRIS COCOLES) This was one of many piers along the shoreline of the North Lake, which my friends and I always hoped were empty so we could claim them. Now, they are blocked by tules that blanket the shoreline. (CHRIS COCOLES)

The South Lake marina (as well as the North Lake one) used to offer rowboat rentals, which I did frequently. But the boats, along with the boathouse and tackle store, are gone. (CHRIS COCOLES)

The lake’s biggest draw is the Harding Park Golf Course, which hosted the 2020 PGA Championship. (CHRIS COCOLES) This critter stared down my dog and me as it seemed to hold court in and outside the men’s restroom. (CHRIS COCOLES)

My dog Emma was more focused on catching some rays than understanding what a special place this was in my fishing-crazed youth. (CHRIS COCOLES)

At least someone trying his luck on this day had a consolation prize: a nice bass. (CHRIS COCOLES)

up some chit-chat with us. “What’s taking so long? The cars ahead of us must be paying their parking fees in pennies.”

WINDY AND COOL Finally, 45 minutes after we’d hit the traffic jam, we exchanged pleasantries and some dry humor with the gate attendant, paid parking and daily fishing permit fees and were finally on our way.

We saw several bank anglers already taking up shoreline spots along the side of the road, so we headed to the main parking lot, checked out the rocky shoreline near the marina, which didn’t look like a comfortable spot to fish, and noticed that the fishing pier was already a crowded mess as well. So we backtracked to another spot with parking and a restroom near a trail that led down to the bank.

By the time we found a cove with some room to socially distance

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ourselves from other anglers, set up the chairs and I had rigged up my rod with a sliding sinker rig and hooked on a nightcrawler, I was cold but hopeful. Shortly after my cast, the wind started to pick up. And a cold day became a miserably cold day.

WHERE ARE THE FISH? Still, we were prepared for a chilly day. Charlene went back up to the car to grab even warmer outerwear, and to her credit she stuck it out pretty well. I too put on a brave face and bundled up while the wind played havoc with my rod. With every jerk of the tip I wondered aloud if I was getting bit or just teased by the gusts.

But while I had little luck catching fish during this most unlucky 2020 for so many, the sun was out and I was outdoors. In my perceived lack of fishing prowess, I was comforted that everywhere I looked nobody else appeared to be pulling in any trout (Charlene took a walk further down the shore out of my sight and also saw no signs of anyone scoring a rainbow).

The highlight of our roughly three hours of fishing was a bass angler who showed up down the bank from me, cast a swimbait and quickly hooked up with a nice one. I asked to take a socially distanced photo and he smiled as he held up what he estimated as a 2½-pounder before releasing the largemouth. A coupledozen casts without a strike later he moved on. Soon enough we did too. It was time to go home.

Tom Stienstra’s advice clearly convinced more than just me to give this lake a try, based on the attendance that day, and while I didn’t catch a fish it stoked memories that made me feel nostalgic. Here’s to better fishing days and a more peaceful and safer 2021. CS

Editor’s note: For more on Los Vaqueros Reservoir, go to ccwater.com/losvaqueros.

A story by longtime outdoors reporter Tom Stienstra convinced the author to give this lake a chance, and while it didn’t work out that day, it’s probably a place to come back to in the future. Maybe 2021 will be different. (CHRIS COCOLES)