Bay Area Freshwater

Uvas Reservoir

by Ed Hood October 16, 2013

South San Jose/Morgan Hill is home to my three favorite bass lakes: Calero, Uvas, & Chesbro Reservoirs, all no more than 10 minutes from each other along the McKean Rd. corridor. Uvas Reservoir is the ~~middle child~~ edit: southernmost in this string of reservoirs and offers quite a bit of shoreline to work. Unfortunately, all watercraft have been banned from this lake so shoreline fishing is the only way to do it.

Two years of drought has taken its toll on this reservoir (like all the others as well). This summer, the water has been critically low and the fishing has been slow. The photos in this post are from a July fishout with customers from my store. You will see how low the water was then and it’s even lower now.

This reservoir runs along Uvas Rd. (McKean Rd. eventually turns into Uvas Rd. a few miles from this reservoir) on the west end of the lake. It is dammed at the south end of the lake and there is one main parking lot not far from the dam. Parking is free at this lot and there are a couple of good coves on either side of the lot. This is where the closed boat ramp is also located and a peninsula jets out from this spot. Fishing from this peninsula is tough as it is covered in oak trees and is very steep all around. The cove at the boat ramp is shallow and is home to quite a few bluegill and some 1-2 pound largemouth. This is the cove that most people fish as it is easy to access, but private property makes much of this cove inaccessible… a problem if there are many people fishing this spot. Another long cove is to the right of the parking lot with more space to work.

Courtesy of Google Maps

This is a pretty big lake with a lot of access to fishing in other spots. If you want to hike and fish areas that most people don’t, you can walk across the dam at the south end of the lake and work the east shoreline. There are hiking trails that parallel the lake on that side or you can stay on the west side and fish the various small dirt turnouts along Uvas Rd. Just keep your eyes out for them, a lot of them are pretty small parking areas. From there you can walk down to the lake.

Even though the fishing was poor when we were out there, I always take this opportunity to observe the structure that is usually underwater and make notes about it. Most of the time you don’t often get to see what’s underwater unless you are in a boat with electronics telling you what’s there.