Wed. before last, I went with one of my fishing buddy Mike to Barrett Lake, a 'catch and release only' lake in east San Diego that you can sometimes get over 100 per day, because of it. He could only stay till 1.30, but I stayed till closing (6 am till 7 p.m- whew).



Selfie to send to the lovely bride. Here it's about 9 and we stopped back for a bathroom run, and had fished the dock area with not a bump on many lures so far.

The gent running the rental boats (five of us took out boats out of the 25 available, no ramp so only rentals) reported he'd only caught one so far by 6 a.m. of the docks- uh oh, he usually gets 20 by then! The cold front had shut them down some what, obviously. Especially top water, nada. We watched one other gent tossing topwater, did not see him getting any action either. With the drizzle seems like it would be wide open. Not. I thought we'd better head to different water, after three hours of nada, and sure enough, as we worked our way to the middle of the lake (about 200 yards away, the lake is down to 5% of normal) we saw a little buster action, and some reported getting them near shore on flukes and brush hogs too.



Nice light on a set of rocks that one gentleman camped on most of the day, must of produced pretty well for him. Late in the afternoon he'd left, but within the hour he was back, tied up and casting to deep water (deep probably being 8').

But after the first 6 hours I'd only hooked into two, but lost them on the way in, both on rattletraps, and he none (well, he got a bluegill on a crank, but I said, rightfully so, that did not count!). The guys all around us were starting to get them regularly and everyone basically, when asked, had about 10 bass, some 20! And we were changing it up, using the same lures, for the most part, and fishing the same areas now! When they asked us how many we'd got, well, we unenthusiastic replied 'none yet'. You really feel like a loser in these situations, a dramatic change was needed, time to call in the 'higher power' (for us, God/Jesus).

So I asked Mike to pray, heck, we needed it. Six hours, times two, was now 720 of minutes of trying hard with nothing to show for it (I've since figured out that was 43,000 seconds of nada). As always, I had prayed in the morning, for success, for a fun time, for safety, etc., but as I recall Mike had not said 'amen'. So I now claimed, half kidding, half serious, that's why it had not worked. He disagreed, and said extra prayer was not needed, but I quoted scripture that says 'where two or more are gathered in my name, there will I be" (Jesus). I said, "since you did not say amen to my prayer, there where not 'two or more', so that's why it did not work". So he agreed to pray for fish.

At this very second of him agreeing, I noticed a neat possible photo, the light on some rocks was really nice (Kinda like the one above I made later) and reached for my cell phone to capture it, all the while tucking my rod under my arm, which I'd been working a worm, so I could now take the picture. He started the prayer in an interesting way, seeming to me... "God, we love you". I gave an 'amen' to that part knowing a lot more was to come, but I didn't hear the rest of the prayer for at that very moment my rod almost gets jerked out of the boat with a fish on it running off! What's the odds of that, the very first sentence of his prayer, the first second after 43,000 seconds of not landing a fish? I instantly put the camera (phone) down, missing the shot as the light changed later, but I set the hook and got the fish landed. Whew, TUL!



Yeah, stripe off the boat and my back, we were starting to make fun of ourselves as how many folks leave skunked at Barrett (we all know it happens once and a while, thankfully not often at a lake like this), and that was how it was starting to look!

After he left, the fishing really picked up, as I joked with him that it would happen! Here's a couple of the nicer bass I landed.



The rattletrap started working for me, and at one point I'd caught 5, and landed three of them, in about 15 minutes. Now were talking!


Saw something white under the weeds on shore later on, not a normal color in the wild, and went and checked it out, ended up being this 'Sammy', hooks rusted. Put new ones on as I always feel it is a sign from the Lord finding lures, and yep, like most Sammys (which I was out of), it worked just great. PIc further down.


Yep, later afternoon is my favorite time at Barrett, the big girls come out to play on top.


The last half hour I must have had 10 blowups, with about three landed, this
one being the largest. Thank you Sammy, and thank you Lord! Ended up with 15 for the day, up to 6 pounds and averaging 3.

The end, thanks for reading.
Keep the faith,
MS

Thanks for sharing the story Michael. God always appreciates us asking for help. Sometimes it takes several prayers to get results. Good fishing my friend.
Donald

Your welcome, and your right, He sure does.

Awesome story and beautiful pictures......thank you for sharing

YOu bet. Went there again yesterday, last day it's open for this year. Was, again, tough in the a.m..

Got first at 11.30, and only one more by 3.30. Took a rest and was back at it at 5. Got a sixer and a four, topwater, then some more 4's on top- spooks and buzzbaits. At dark I had an 8 absolutely obliterate my buzzbait, but I lost her by trying to swing her in, instead of net her. My bad.

Tossed a spook on the dock building roof and broke 8" off my Dobyn's Champion frog rod trying to 'reverse loosen' it- ouch.

The lake is closed till next May, only open for duck hunting in the winter.

Sounds like Barret is a little jewel with a tough closing schedule. It should have some monsters in there Michael.