| Henry Coe Park Back Country Weekend By Rocky Ferraro Some of you have running in the back of your mind a sort of bucket list. These are the things we’ve always wanted to do but for one reason or another they are always put on the back burner. I have been trying to do this Coe back country weekend for some time now because supposedly the lakes on the East side that are real hard to get to have lots of eager hungry bass in them. Back country weekend happens once a year at Henry Coe Park. You are allowed for a fee to drive back about 10 miles into the back country and start your hike from there. It is a 3 day event but I was only able to go one day. So I took advantage of the back country weekend and ended up going to Jackrabbit Lake which is way back there and would normally take you several days to do a round trip. I’ve always said to myself this place has got to be good! It’s like that magic fishing hole nobody is supposed to know about but when you get there you find out that everyone thinks about getting to this place too someday. I left later in the morning again a low pressure day. This time I left everyone behind and did a loner trip. This usually means that I travel light and keep a blistering pace on my hike. This was true as I averaged a little over 3.5 miles per hour. I got to Jack Rabbit Lake after several elevation gains and losses. They don’t tell you that when the country is rolling hills those advertised elevation gains are done sometimes several times. So when they say 900 feet elevation gain it turns out to be times 3 or 4. I arrived after hiking ~7 miles and sat down for lunch. The lake was an unspoiled beauty but had many aquatic plants. This meant you had to use weed less lures or at the very least semi- weed less. There were not too many trees surrounding the lake so the casting was good. Since it was back country weekend there were quite a few people there. In Henry Coe Park you can also take your horse or your mountain bike, which are all faster than hiking. This is the time of year when temperatures are cool so take advantage of keeping a brisk pace without getting dehydrated too fast. You can also car camp or back pack on this weekend I saw quite a few people doing this. One other thing was that the Boy Scouts were out in big numbers. I tried an imitation bluegill fly that I tied but it needs further development so I decided to go with my Clouser minnow. I let it sink and jiggled it in. STRIKE! Got a hit and caught a bass. This lake has quite a few small mouth bass and no bluegill. I did see a few frogs jump into the water as I walked along the bank. So probably the main foods for these bass are tadpoles, minnows and frogs. I talked to one Scout Master that was fishing and he said that in the evening you can score big on top water lures that imitate frogs. I caught a few bass and it was time to hike back the seven or so miles to the shuttle. It was a nice day and I can now scratch this one off my list. Next year I will try and do a 3 day back pack trip on back country weekend and hit a few lakes. Any takers? |
| Henry Coe Park Back Country Weekend |
| Foster City Rod and Gun Club |
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