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Monday, July 4th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 78

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: The past ten days have been very exciting. First I took Carla and her "bachlorettes" out for a day of fishing and partying. The next day I took out Sarah and decided to head towards the Ranch house. We trolled in one of my favorite areas and she was bringing bass in one after the other. Instead of continuing on we trolled the same strip over and over until she caught her limit (see photo). The next day I took out Kevin and decided to try the same strip again. He also caught fish but it took him awhile to get into the flow of landing the bass. He also tried topwater lures with no success. I believe with the amount of holiday boat traffic that it turned the topwater bite off. The following day Megan and I headed out with hotdogs because she wanted to catch some catfish before we fished for bass. She ended up catching a couple of catfish, a squawfish (sacramento pike) and a few bass. Lastly I took out Dan who ended up catching a good size catfish, bass and trout. My buddy John told me he caught two nice bass from shore using a senko. The water temperature is 78 degrees and the visibility is 10 feet down for sure. All in all it was a very good weekend for fishing. 'til next time.........................good fishing!!!!
    www.fishingconnection.net If you have any questions please email me at bestguide@hotmail.com or call me at 650-583-3333.





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    From: bestfishingguide@yahoo.com
    Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2011 20:15:55 -0700
    To: pkilkus@gmail.com; estersilberberg@hotmail.com; bestguide@hotmail.com; bunniez912@yahoo.com; henry18@pacbell.net


    SIDS iPhone
    SIDS iPhone
    SIDS iPhone
    City: NAPA

    Tips: I snorkeled on my favorite points saw lots of fish

Friday, July 1st, 2011

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    Water Temp: 79

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Hello Steve Johnson, I've been fishing berressa for many many years. You may want to use a lots of light line because of the water clarity when using plastics unless you're using top water. Look for weeds in the east side of the lake and thwow spooks around cover early in the morning an late even. I'm sure you probably know about that already. Try using small dart heads around islands , points and bluffs. I usually use 4 1/2 inch strait tail worms on a 1/8 oz. darthead in morning dawn,original green weenie, and oxblood colors. Try small ring worms too in salt and pepper and also grubs in smoke color. Fish the windy ares in points and wind blown in coves, especially weeds for large mouths. With the water always being so clear I always use 6 lb. test to get more bites. Also use 4 inch sinkos in natural colors to shad colors an make lond casts.
    City: san mateo

    Tips: When fishing this lake,Fish a lot of islands. There aren't too many but there is some to fish. You may try some islands on the north west end of the main lake. The smaller baits will get yopu more bites. Just make sure there is always deep water close to where you're fishing. They hang around the ledges.

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 70-75

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Had plenty of fish blow up on a frog early but couldn't keep them hooked. Tried following with Senko and no takers. Switched to plastics around 9:30 and caught one 6.9 on fourth cast. Figured I had it dialed in now, but only a few strikes and one to the boat that jumped off just as I was ready to flip him in. But the one fish will hold me over until next time.
    City: Sonoma

    Tips: Don't stay away from the water for too long. I have not spent much time fishng this year and as you can tell from my report my bite to hook up ratio sucks. Caught the 6.9 on a new Big Bite bait called a flying squirrel. Check them out they have some great baits.

Sunday, June 26th, 2011

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I am a novice fisherman an not too familiar with Berryessa. Would someone be willing to share with me some good spots to fish on this lake; I have heard that up to Putah Creek by the bridge is a good spot but that is a long run from Markley Cove where I would launch. I would appreciate any input. I'm not so interested in "lunkers" as I am catching more numbers to make the trip worth the drive and have some fun. Thank you for any input.
    City: Carmichael

Friday, June 24th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 75 - 78

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Friday, 6/24/11. The day got hot with the air temperatures going above 80º by the end of the day. The water temperature was 75 - 78º. I guess these conditions caused the bite to be tough all day. After trying different baits and colors, we started catching fish drop-shotting a 4 inch shad color Alive Shad RoboWorm. Most of the 11 fish we caught were around points with deep water near by. Most were in the 1 to 2½ lb. range and included all three species of bass. We also had several bites on Senkos. My buddy hooked and lost a large bass – estimated to be well over 3 lbs – on a Texas rigged Senko. Contrary to where we caught most of our fish, he hooked this big fish next to debris covered water back in a cove. This was after I had thrown a wacky-style Senko a couple of times to the same spot. In calm areas, we could still see small schools of fry but the fry are much bigger than those I had reported on earlier in the month.
    City: Pinole

    Tips: Some bass can still be found in shallow water with some cover. Cast more than once to these promising areas.

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    Water Temp: 74-76

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Started fishing around the big island using a Robo Worm/Drop Shot...3rd cast landed a 4.5 lb spot, five casts later hooked what appeared to be a 7+ lb had him close to the boat ready to pull him in when he chose to muscle up took a hard drive, straightened out my owner hook and ultimately snapped the hook in half...first time I have had a owner hook do that. Caught six keepers and missed three out good bites. Caught all fish between 8 to 12 feet
    City: Elk Grove

    Tips: Fish the cuts and points and don't forget to work both sides of the point.

Saturday, June 18th, 2011

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Normaly I do not fish berryessa after the first week of June, but with the late running spring I thought I would give it a try. I am glad I did the bite was the best I had all year as far as numbers. Started with topwater and had 3 fish on the first 5 casts. The topwater kept up till 8:30 then it died. Went to the east side and started fishing any place where deep water swung close to the shore. The bite was slow picking one or two for stop. Then the wind picked up and pushed the bait up on one of the spots and it went off for close to a hour it was a fish on every cast including a SM that went 21" on the board did not have my scale to weigh.After that I just looked for bait and kept on the fish. Over all a great day had over fifty fish off the water around 2 best 5 at 15+ this bite might hold up for a couple more weeks.
    City: vacaville

    Tips: Burn as much water in the morning for the topwater, spots on the points LM in the wood. After that look for the bait and follow the wind once you find that the drop shot is hard to beat.

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 76

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Started fishing about 7;30am on the east side and on my first cast caught a spot on a spook. Got few more on spook and looked for fish in the shallows. I saw bass here and there all ober the lake. Saw some chasing shad too. There was no wind and made fishing tough. Threw some swimbaits and hooked a couple of good ones around 3 lbs, and lost one bigger. tried flukes alot and managed to catch a few when the wind finally came up a little. Tried dart heading in deeper water and started catching a few more. Mostly spots and smallies. Wy friend caught some dragging behind the boat too. I caught a hybrid that weighed 3.70 lbs. I was surprized how big that bass was.
    City: san mateo

    Tips: Try cranking or use small swim baits, We seen a few bass chasing shad here and there though out the day. Fish aroung 15 to 25 ft. Thats where we were getting the spots and smallies. Fish windy ares.

Friday, June 10th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 68-70

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished Putah creek from 7am-3pm and had a fairly good top water bite early for small fish to 2 lbs and had one 4 pounder all on poppers. I tried spinners,drop shot and wacky for a couple good hits but I could not stick um. Later in the day when the wind picked up I tied on a swim bait and fished across heavy blown points. Letting it sink to the bottom, about 15 feet and slowly reeling. I almost had my 8 foot extra heavy rod ripped out of my hands then....NOTHIN.
    City: Napa

    Tips: I am thinking on my swim bait hit, That I made to long of a cast on mono and I was a little asleep at the switch. Good luck

    That $21.00 launch fee is way out of line.

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 66 -75

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Thursday, 6/9/11. All day there was a blue bird sky with a slight breeze starting in the morning and increasing in the afternoon. The water temperature was 66º on the main body and up to 75º in protected coves by the afternoon. The water is clear to 10 ft. in most areas. In the morning, my buddy and I fished the East side and then Putah Creek but only caught two fish. Carp on the East side were in full spawn and were splashing so much that the water was muddy close to the shore. Finally at about 2:00 PM, we found fish in coves on the South end of the lake or maybe the bite didn’t turn on until that time. My buddy and I ended the day with eight fish each. Most were in the 1 to 2 lb. range. Several were over 2 lbs with two largemouth bass close to 3 lbs. These two fish were most likely post-spawn because they were extremely skinny and would have weighed much more during the pre-spawn. The other fish were mostly spots with a few smallmouth fish mixed in. All were caught between 3 ft. to 15 ft of water. All but one of the fish was caught drop-shotting Folkstead and MM colored RoboWorms. There was also a wacky-style Senko bite but only one fish was hooked. They appeared not to be taking the Senko fully in their mouth (or I was setting the hook too soon). I had several bites and set the hook only to bring in the line with the Senko missing. The day started off slow but we ended catching some fish and having fun. I should also mention that where the water was calm enough, we could see many large schools of fry. I have never seen this many fry on Berryessa before. Hopefully, this projects even better fishing in the future. Also in one calm cove, we saw a large school of shad that made the surface of the water appear like the wind was blowing only on one large section in the middle of the cove. Again, I have never seen anything like this on Berryessa before.
    City: Pinole

    Tips: Maybe there is no need to get up so early to go bass fishing on Berryessa.

Sunday, June 5th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 63

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: With all the rain, me and my buddy decided to lauch from markley and cough up the twenty bucks for launch. We figured less we run the dryer we will be in this weather. I guess we made a ok decision. We caught bunch of bass. we caught about twenty five bass. Around 15 were spots, 5 smallies and 5 largies. Most spots were small. Few decent laries about the usual 1.5 lbs to 2.0 lbs. All were caught on sinkos.
    City: daly city

    Tips: Fish coves an trees. Fish are about 10 ft. deep. WE didn't try drop shotting, dart heading, or any reaction baits. I don't think we would of caught much if we did try.

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 62-67

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Started fishing @ 7:30 and fished a couple of areas throwing mostly reaction baits. By the time I was on my 3rd stop and it was 2.5 hours later with no fish. Finally started throwing a tube on a 3/16 jig head and the catching started. It wasn't wide open and they weren't tourney fish, but it was steady fun. These were definitely postspawn fish, and they were healthy, chunky, feisty fish. Most of them were spitn up bits of shad and crawdaddies. I thought I would see more than the couple of bass boats that I did see, but most of trailers in the lot look like trout/salmon dudes. From 10:30-4:30 boated around 20-25 keeps up to 2#.
    City: orinda

    Tips: Fish were in the 4-12 ft depths. Once in awhile i would mark fish in the 18-20 ft range, but could not get them to go. I basically caught them on 2 baits; tubes and grubs. Tubes in the beginning and grubs in the end. I think they really liked the tubes as they swallowed some of those, while the grub fish were all hooked on the lips. Most of the fish were on small points with a few fish in between....good luck.

Sunday, May 22nd, 2011

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    Water Temp: 76-69

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished the West side of the big island, caught all of our fish in cuts and small wind blown coves in 8 to 10 feet of water. We caught 10 fish on drop-shot robo worm in morning dawn color. Had another 8 to 10 bites but couldn't land them in the boat. Our best five fish went 17.5 lbs with the biggest fish at 3.5 lbs and included three smallies.

    No takers on rattle traps, crank baits, jerk baits or top water...Drop-Shot was the meal of the day.
    City: Elk Grove

    Tips: When you get your first bite look at your depth finder and see how deep of water your boat is in...then keep your boat in that depth as you fish. Every time we moved deeper we lost our bite; once we got the boat back at the right depth of our first bite we would get hit again.

Saturday, May 21st, 2011

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    Water Temp: 68

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Subject: Fishing with Sid

    This past weekend I went fishing with Albert and Jory. What a difference a week makes the lake was calm and clear and I decided to retrace our pattern from last week. We started out by the Ranch house and the water was crystal clear we could see the bass 12 feet down but they would not bite. I guess if we could see them they could see us. Decided to head straight to the Vineyard. The first fish was caught on brass and glass so were the next few. Albert had set up his rod with a weight that was too heavy so I suggested he make it lighter. He decided to use only the glass bead and boy he was raking them in. His first fish (which he lost) must have weighed almost 8 pounds but every fish he brought in was a good size. Of course Jory and I switched to using the same setup and it worked for us as well. I believe that part of the formula was using the Procure crawdad scent on the worm and the other part was using a very light weight. Albert had to go home early so after leaving him off Jory and I went to my favorite cove and I threw a six inch watermelon red senco on top of a submerged tree and "POW" a five pound bass hit it on the way down (see photo). That was a nice catch!!! Jory largest fish did not make it into the boat because he got so excited he lifted it out of the water to early and the fish spit out the hook and waved goodbye. Jory did catch some nice bass that he did land using a rattle trap. The top water bite is not happening yet at least not for me and trust me I tried very hard. The water temperature was close to 68 degrees which was a huge difference from last weekend. All in all it was a great weekend for fishing.
    'til next weekend.................................................................good fishing!!!
    www.fishingconnection.net If you have any questions please email me at bestguide@hotmail.com or call me at 650-583-3333.
    City: Napa

    Tips: Waiting for top water to turn on,fish were caught in 5 feet of water,try shallow to deep,try everything in your fishing tackle box till you figure out a patern.cesparce abcence

Saturday, May 14th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 63-67

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I guided a nice fellow from Australia yesterday and I understood most of what he said! A bit of an Aussie accent!! Fishing was pretty good but not great. We fished a little bit of everything with the biggest bass being a 3 1/4 spawned-out spotted bass that took a Jackall Mikey topwater bait. Several bass came up to look at it but said "not today!" Bass seemed to be suspended off points and some still spawning. Robo worms were effective. Bite was best when the wind was up. No surprise.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: Post-spawn fish seem to be more active now and will hit topwater, spinnerbaits, and swimjigs after first light, areas with shadows as the sun gets higher (water is very clear now in many places), evenings, and cloudy days. Mid-day with high sun can be tough now through the summer and early fall.

Saturday, May 7th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 61 / 65

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Went fishing at Lake Berryessa this past Saturday (5/07) expecting nice calm water and warm weather instead it was very windy and the main part of the lake was all white caps. John, Albert and I left from Lupine (Steele Park) and we were so excited like kids going into a toy store. John told me he had not caught a fish in eight years and my mission was to change that. My game plan was to start by the Ranch house and end up at the Vineyards. Of course that meant cutting through all the white caps. Sitting in the front was not easy with all the waves and bouncing. We went into a cove where there was some shelter from the wind with no success. I was looking for spawning fish but was not able to see any. I decided to troll towards the Vineyards. The second cove was behind the Ranch house and pretty calm where we could see at least ten feet down but no fish. Continuing on to the Vineyards I didn't stop till we got there. It took about four times longer then normal but we finally reached the first barbwire fence and then we trolled slowly to the second one with no success. I told them we should change to brass and glass and use senco worms and our luck changed. John's first fish spit out the bait just as it got within reach of the boat but we were so excited to finally hit fish that he didn't feel that bad. His line was old and he lost a few setups because it snapped. My recommendation is to put new line on at the beginning of the season so you won't be disappointed when you hit that big one. John changed to a weightless senco with a wide gap hook and landed a nice size bass that weighed almost three pounds (see photo). Next fish was caught by Albert using almost the same method. It was a rough day because of the whitecaps. I feel that if the water would have been calmer we would have had a limit for everyone the fish were there it was just hard to keep the boat in place for any period of time. The water temperature was ideal from 61 to 65 degrees so the only factor working against us all day was the wind. Hopefully the weather will be better next weekend 'til then.......................................................good fishing!!!!!
    www.fishingconnection.net If you have any questions please email me at bestguide@hotmail.com or call me at 650-583-3333.
    City: Napa

    Tips: now its time to fish it is happening now

Friday, May 6th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 65-68

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Fished for 7hrs starting at 6am in putha creek. White spinner baits early pick up 2 lg mouth around standing dead trees in 12 feet of water. Caught 4 smallmouth on crawdad cranks around rocky walls and 2 more on a sexy swimmer after letting it sink 10 feet in and around dead trees. Best five 8.5 lbs.
    City: Napa

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 64 - 70

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Thursday, 5/5/11, beautiful day with a slight breeze most of the day and with temperatures to the mid 80’s. We started off-shore on the East side in 10 – 20 ft of water and only caught two fish. The water temperature was 64º. Next, we moved to a large cove on this side and caught 5 more fish. At noon we moved to the West side and fished from the small island south to Oak Shore Park. The water temperature in this area started at 66° and went up to 70º by 5 pm. We caught an additional 20 fish for a total of 27 fish for the day. The fish were a mixture of large mouth, small mouth and spots. Most were males in the 1½ to 2½ lbs range. A few were spawned out small females weighing close to 3 lbs. In protected areas where the water was perfectly calm, we saw a lot of cruising fish and were able to watch several pick up our bait. We also saw a couple pairs of fish which appeared to be on beds. All fish were caught drop-shotting 4½ in. shad-colored RoboWorms. They were mostly in 5 to 15 ft. of water on or around points with deep water nearby.
    City: Pinole

    Tips: Fish on and around points drop-shotting 4½ RoboWorms and have fun catching a lot of fish.

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    Water Temp: 60° - 64°

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Hi Zach,I don't know about trick, but largemouth,smallmouth,spots and redeye are all lumped under the rules for "Black Bass"(Ca F&G) and Berryessa is under the balance of lakes and has a 12" limit for those species.
    City: Richmond

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Sam thanks but I was being sarcastic. I messed up and forgot to put what I was going for. I watched this guy pull in a smallmouth that looked to be 10" from about 80' away, but I know a small fish when I see one. I know what the size limit is but this guy didn't.