Clearlake Bait & Tackle Now Open!!

[zeke]

Clearlake Bait & Tackle located at 14699 Lakeshore Dr. in Clearlake CA. 707-994-4399 is now open for business. The store has a complete line of bass fishing equipment, along with tackle for the panfish and catfish enthusiasts. In addition to the parking lot in front of the building, the back of the building has gate access from the Redbud parking lot just 50 yards from the launch Store hours are 6AM to 6PM daily. Come check out the new store at one of the best bass fisheries in the country!!

[Guest]

Zeke,

Great timing for the post. Gilroy Bassmasters will be up there for a 2 day tournament out of Red Bud this weekend. I'll be sure to stop by and check out the new store.

[zeke]

Vince, good luck this weekend! Be safe and get your spot early. There will be a lot of boats out, both the catfish derby and the Anglers Choice Pro/Am guys will be out with you.

[zeke]

CJ, Yes this is a new store. Just opened last week. We are located right on the Redbud launch ramp parking lot.

[hammer]

Very nice shop. I just stopped by after seeing the post, since I work right up the street. Has all of the quality baits and very good swimbait selection. Very reasonable prices as well. It's great to see a store back in Clearlake specializing in bass.

[zeke]

Big Thanks!!! to all the guys and gals that came by the store this weekend. Especially the Bass-N-Tubes club, Sonoma Belly Bassboat club, Gilroy Bassmasters, Elk Grove Club, Anglers Choice Pro's and Am's, and finally all the Catfish Derby participants. It was great to meet everyone.

[tommypV2]

Hey Zeke!
Congrats! I was peeking into your shop when i was up there a month ago - looks good!
Some unsolicited advice you can ignore: Please do stay open later (6 or 7pm Fridays) on "big tourney prefish days" and don't close early on weekends like some other shops... I hate it when i get off the water, rush over to the shop to get a supply of baits that have been working, and find the store closed! I would rather shop at a local tackel shop than the WalMart up the highway.
If'n you were open early on those few days when the biggest tourneys were launching out of Redbud, that would be great too...

(get ready to give up fishing - your wife won't want to be the only one in the shop!)

- Tommyp
(a friend of GaryW)

[Bassin]

Zeke, Thanks for being open so early(5am) Sunday morning. I was able to pick up those hard, if not impossable to find baits just before launching at Redbud for the Bass-n-Tubes Open.

Also, if you still have that Creek Company Kickboat, there is a guy posting a "poll post" on here, looking for a deal on one...just wanted to let you know...Good Luck, and see ya next time I am up at Clear Lake....October.

Bryan

[Guest]

All,

I had a chance to stop by the new store and I was very impressed. Also the location could be any better as the rear entrance opens right into Red Bud where I was able to get a few tips and tackle after the Day 1 weigh in. The only thing I would recommend is possibly putting up either a light above the sign on the rear entrance so it grabs a bit more attention launching in the morning. Either that or a neon sign so that you can see it from the launch ramp.

Trip report:

Well the bite was tough as I didn't have enough time off of work to get up there early to prefish. Add to the fact that I arrived late to the tournament by about an hour as I missed the staff at Russo's on Friday night before they closed to get my boat out of storage. Luckily I showed up early on Sat morning around 3:00am and ran into someone who could open the gate up for me to get the boat out.

I met my non-boater at the launch ramp, chatted with a local fisherman for a good 20 min as I was prepping the boat and set off around 6:30am a good half hour after everyone else in the club. I tried a few spots where I knew some fish hold both before and after the spawn with some top water, a spinnerbait and a rip bait without any takers before slowing down for a few drop shot fish. By 10:00am I had a small limit dropshotting and spent te rest of the day searching for bigger fish on senko's, reaction baits, etc. The crappie are really agressive and just about everywhere right now and kept hitting my senko on areas that looked like beds in the south. This sort of threw me for a loop as I thought they were bed fish and spent too much time on them. Also there is a TON of shad swimming in schools just about everywhere right now. I was pretty amazed to see that much shad in the entire lake in huge schools.

Around 12:30pm I lost a fish in the 5lb range on a senko and wasn't able to get anything over 14" the rest of the day. The bite in general seemed to really shut down around 11:30am. At the end of Sat I weighed in 5 fish for 7.2 lbs scratching my head trying to figure out what they were doing. After the weigh in I stopped by Clearlake Bait and Tackle to pickup some more dropshot worms and get some advice from Zeke. He said he heard a few guys getting fish on frogs in the keys and that most guys were either struggling for bites or keeping their mouths shut. Later that night I fished from 6:00pm to dusk in the keys looking for either a frog bite or a little help in figuring out what the fish are onto as it's shallow, filled with cover and pretty easy to figure out.

While launching I ran into a guy who just came back with his wife/son who said they were stroking the fish all day split shotting baby brush hogs and tiny brush hogs in green pumpkin. Also everyone going into the bait shops were looking for green pumpkin senko's which pretty much confirmed a few things that I suspected for this time of year. I spent the evening tossing the frog (no blow ups), pitching a green pumpkin baby brush hog and narrowing the drop shot colors down to 3-4 that seemed to work. There are a lot of buck males at the points of spawning coves with structure in about 5-7 feet of water, however I couldn't seem to catch anything over 2.5 lbs. I was also able to get a few on a shallow running crankbait but had much better luck with the brush hog/drop shot combo.

Sun morning I launched and set out to the spot where I lost the 5lber yesterday. I spent most of the morning jumping around from spot to spot looking at the depth finder and trying to isolate the pattern more. By 12:30pm I was running low on gas (about 1/4 tank left) and didn't have any fish in the boat. I lost a few good fish on senkos but the seemed a bit too skittish and didn't want to take it all the way in.

At this point I'm fishing around monitor island and a light bulb went off in my head. I decided to abandon everything I was doing before and stick with a carolina rig fished really slow and a 6" zoom lizard in green pumpkin. By the 3rd cast I had a 2lber in the boat on the windy side of the island point right were he should be. I worked my way to the other side of the island and nailed another fish. At this point I worked several other points and casted further with catching a few 12" fish. I ran back to several other spots including the area where I caught my limit on Sat and nailed a 3lber and a 2.5 lber with about 20 min left before weigh in at 2:00pm. Running low on gas and time I was unable to fill out my limit just as I figured out exactly what the fish were doing.

The guys who won the tournamnet who were both boater and non-boater basically were on the same pattern that I found late Sunday. They caught their fish on points with structure relative to spawning coves on green pumpkin senko's on Sat with a couple of decent limits in the 16-19lb range each (don't remember the exact weights). Sun they hit the same areas in the morning without so much as a bite before they ran towards kinocti pitching senko's to cruisers that they found during prefish on Friday but couldn't see on sunday due to the overcast. According to them about every 15 minutes of blind casting to spots they connected with a decent fish on green pumpkin senko's.

Hopefully within the next couple of weeks these fish will transisition to their post-spawn feeding binge and the bite should open up along with the top water bite. Until them fish slow, stick with green pumpkin and downsize if you're not getting the bites.

[BassTraveler]

Do you carry bullet weights?

[zeke]

Sieg, sorry but you will have to check with your local gun shop for your supply of bullets.