Saturday I headed out to Lower Otay to pre-fish for the AIM Sunday Series, which was the next day. We got to the lake a little later then I had wanted, but it turned out ok, as there was a pretty good sized line to wait in. While there in line I noticed a few guys from the San Diego Bassmasters club I’m in, so we did some chatting on ideas for the day. It’s great to be in a club that is full of members so willing to share information. I’ve heard of clubs that are very tight with the information that they have, to me this kind of defeats the purpose of being in the club.
So launch and head straight to my planned first spot. My plan for the day was to throw a Lucky Craft Hardbaits – Staysee 90 SP 
Jerkbait (Chartreuse Shad) down the tulle line. In about 20 minutes I had what turned out to be my only fish (should have thrown some BC Baits soft plastic hand poured baits more), which was a smaller model, just over a pound. We noticed a lot of anglers up in the tulles fishing on beds, but with it being so early, and since we didn’t see anyone catching fish, we decided to stick with the plan, and fish the outer tulles. We should have caught on.
My buddy Chance was Carolina rigging a BC Baits single tail grub (its by far his go to bait, Salt & Pepper), but only had a few missed hits on it. After a few hours of trying a few other baits, he decided to join me in throwing the hard baits. It so happened that he had a Rapala Shad Rap RS 
crank bait (Shad) tied on, so that’s what he threw. I mentioned to him as he picked it up, that it might not be a great bait to use, since it was fairly deep and that bait runs shallower, he threw it anyway. First or second cast I hear, “I told you this shit would work, fish on baby”. I turn to see a pretty good bend in his Shimano Crucial Spinning Rod , and him fighting what looked like a good catch, that was until it came to the surface. Heres the picture:
It has to be the meanest, ugliest rainbow trout that I’ve ever seen. And he was pissed.
We tossed him in the live well and added some U2 Pro Formula Livewell Fish & Bait Booster 
, as he didn’t look too well. He became pretty active and when we passed a little kid in a float tube fishing for trout (but had an empty net), we gave him away (we mainly just fish for sport, but CA law says we can’t release the trout, so we had to keep it.) The rest of the day was a few bites, but no fishin the well. Turns out one of the guys in the club, that we’d seen earlier, blanked (as did his back seater), and the other guys landed 2 each fishing beds. Maybe we should have joined in the bed fishing when we saw it.