Bass Fishing Forum - Westernbass.com

The bite here at Clear Lake remains pretty awesome this week with a lot of anglers putting some decent numbers in the boat for their effort. The hot bite is definitely in the middle and southern arms of the lake where the water is deeper with a rocky bottom. The key to being successful right now is paying attention to the water color. Try to avoid areas where the water is a tannic brown color that looks like gravy. Those are the areas where the weeds are decomposing & oxygen levels are low and pretty much devoid of fish.

The Jig bite is nothing short of EPIC right now in the south end of the lake. Throw a 1/2 or 3/4oz football head in the brown/orange or brown/purple with a beaver trailer & smother it in some smelly jelly & marinate that bad boy on the rockpiles & rocky shoreline in 8' to 25'. There is also a great crank bite down south with guys doing well on everything from a square bill to the XD10 in crawdad and baitfish patterns. The top water is going strong early & late on buzzbaits, Rio Rico's and walk the dog style baits like the super spook and G2 Lunker Punker. The frog bite is good but the overall lack of weeds is puzzling this year but I still have it on the deck ready to go if the opportunity presents itself & you stumble on to a decent mat. Chatterbait bite is good on dark colors especially in the afternoon when the wind comes up.

There is not a lot of boat traffic or fishing pressure up here on the lake right now. All the ramps & roads are open & the lake is in great shape. If you guys get a chance, I would highly recommend coming up and getting on the good bite. Next month the FLW boys will be here beating them into remission. LOL. so get it while we can.

tight lines & huge sacks,

Troy Bellah Clearlake Outdoors

Thanks for that great info buddy. How's the air quality? I'd guess most of the smoke is headed east.
Coming up next week for a couple of days, will stop in and say hi.

There has been very little smoke in the Clearlake basin since the fire started. The wind shifted last night and its smoky this morning.
I would like to add that for me in the more tanic looking water black/ blue or black / purple jigs have been better.
Dave
Also we just got some of the ABT glide baits in the foil finish Hitch color . They look awesome.

clearlakeoutdoors wrote:There has been very little smoke in the Clearlake basin since the fire started. The wind shifted last night and its smoky this morning.
I would like to add that for me in the more tanic looking water black/ blue or black / purple jigs have been better.
Dave
Also we just got some of the ABT glide baits in the foil finish Hitch color . They look awesome.

Until this weekend you mean......Heck today you could not see Lakeport or the Keyes from the narrows. I would not suggest that anyone with any type of respiratory issue come up here until the Hayfork and Trinity Fires stop sending their smoke south. You think it's bad in the Bay Area.....it's far worse here! I was out this morning and my eyes hurt and nose is completely dried out.......Dan

Yesterday a bit hazy. Lots of blackened brush, again, coming from Williamson. Ran across a gentleman with Americana colors all over his boat named Dale Ball that said he was killing them in the south. I worked up here at Konocti and did ok, driving so. today to launch and ck it out!

Scratch that. Just drove by a new fire west of Kelseyvilke. What bad luck. Thinking of leaving after dark, need to get some more fish.