Bass Fishing Forum - Westernbass.com

For all of you headed this way for this weekends T's, be carefull. It is pretty nasty with alot of rain. Soda Bay road is starting to flood in spots and it is still coming down pretty hard here in Kelseyville. The positive thing, the wind has died down dramatically since earlier today.
Smitty

Most of the snow has melted on hwy. 20 due to the rain. I'm looking out the windows now and the lake is calm but the rain is still coming down hard, hope the wind stays down for those fishing tomarrow.

3 inches in my gauge since this front came in. Water has risen 2 1/4 feet.

Its seven thirty and the wind is howling. Little over three inches of rain and lake has come up almost 8 inches. Another front coming in and I hope the wind lays down or it will be downright dangerous out there.

The wind did lay down and it is glass here in the south. Looks like the weather kept most of the guys at home, I know it's a small field when not a single boat has fished my dock by 9:30 A.M.

I am headed up tomorrow morning, it looks like the weather is forecasting 19MPH winds. Any words of advice for safety purposes.

Thanks

You got that right. I fish your doc all the time! Awesome in spring!
Smitty

Just heard, 15 boats. six lbs won it. Only one boat had two fish. Only 6 fish caught. This is unofficial. Also, highway 20 was closed last night due to flooding so probably stopped any boats coming up this morning.

Wrong, 7 fish caught. Ten boats blanked. Highway 20 was closed due to flooding so some of the guys slept in their rigs until it opened up this morning. One guy said he turned around and went all the way around. Seven and a half hrs to get here. Water temp wasn't to bad at a high of 48 and not windy. Everybody is just shaking their heads wondering what happened. The last two weeks have been the worse weigh-ins in years that the guys can remember. Maybe the guys who bashed Terry Knight had better think again as its really weird. Just a month ago my daughter and I were out and put 25 fish in the boat including a eight and a seven and a half. That same day a tournament was won with 36 lbs. Anyway, the good news is the lake has come up 9 inches today at this time so at least we're ahead of last year.

I recall talking to Ross England at the Sacramento ISE at this time last year, and he was telling me about a tournament he had just fished the week prior at Clear Lake... and blanked. In fact, he told me neither he nor his partner had a single bite the entire day. Obviously a tough day when one of the most respected guides on the lake can't buy a single bite. And like I said, that was LAST year, and we all remember how the remainder of 2007 turned out. Yes, that tournament today sounded brutal, and I suspect the bite is very tough, but it's the dead of winter on a body of water containing primarily Florida bass, guys. Is anyone really expecting the bite to be WFO?

People have been sounding the death knell on Clear Lake for many, many years now. Does anyone remember a WON Bass 2-day Pro-Am back in about 1991 won with less than 20lbs. of bass? IIRC, that tournament was in the fall, when fishing is usually phenomenal. Hell, even the DF&G was reading Clear Lake her last rights back then. With all due respect to Terry Knight, on or about every 10 years or so, it seems to be the trendy thing to do. Yes, there have been periods of rough fishing, but somehow the lake always seems to rebound and continues to amaze us all. And so it shall again, I'm quite certain.

RR_20

Ridge_Runner20, I think you are right. I can remember many January days over the last 20 years that I didn't get bit all day, to me this is a typical January.

The fish are fine and they are there....no doubt.

My last visit to Clear Lake was 2 weeks ago. From the previous weeks outing I knew two things; the water temps were VERY low (40-44) and the fish were not biting any type of artificials. So I picked up a dozen jumbo minnows and caught 9 fish including this 7+lber:

<img src="/shared/photos/photos/resized/5072_resized.jpg">

This was for two hours of fishing along approximately 75 yards of shoreline. My best 5 that day went just over 20lbs.....so from my personal experience I think the bass in the lake are fine.

I recall Cooch referring to Clear Lake as the "dead sea" for this time of the year. He's right as rain about that.

Once the water temp is consistently above 45 again the bite will pick-up, count on it.

As a natural lake CL will rebound if anything is happening like in 91 and 92. Nobody is saying there is a crash. Just wondering why the bite has gotten so bad the last couple of weeks. My theory is its the low water and the colder Temps. I think the next two weeks with the help of rising water and hopefully warmer water the bite will take off. I don't want to beat this to death but natural impoundments have their ups and downs. At its worse, Clear Lake is still better than most in the country. As a matter of fact, I like it tougher so you young hot shots that can throw swimbaits all day are even up with us old timers that only have the strength to flip, jib etc.

Seems to me that the discussion above is all pretty much speculation about whether the lack of any bite at Clear Lake means anything about the bass population. Many seem to think this is purely seasonal, something that's certainly true at least in part. But I think everyone can agree about one fact that absolutely, positively is different about this year from the past several, namely the almost total lack of baitfish. As I recall, the big fish eat the little fish, and with about a jillion pounds of little fish AWOL this winter something very different has to happen - that's pure cause and effect.

Fact: the last three (?) years have seen an ungodly amount of threadfin shad and silverside minnows in the lake, a phenomena that led to enormous populations of carnivorous birds (grebes, terns, pelicans, cormorants, etc). This year the baitfish seem to be totally absent, as evidenced by the lack of birds.

Nature has a great way of balancing itself out over time in a cyclic "boom-bust" manner as predators and prey seek a balance. It seems hard for me to believe that the lack of baitfish this year doesn't lead to the logical conclusion that the predators aren't going to be able to gorge themselves at the buffet, and thus are in for a rough spell.

Doesn't this make sense?

That makes sense but were do you think the fish went?

I don't think they all died of starvation because all the fish I have been catching on minnows have been fat and healthy.

Last year we had a very dead time about this time. Suddenly something sparked them and they came rip-roaring back. Last year dead sticking a shaky head was the first to produce. I went from blanking 4 times in a row to scoring 20 per trip.

Official Lake Level
01/26/2008 23:00 3.86 above the Rumsey Riffle should be 4 ft by Morning.

Woohoo, half way there.
01/27/2008 09:00 4.00 ft above Rumsey.

Nice fish Stockoption.

The perfect BBQ size.