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Friday, October 2nd, 2009

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    Water Temp: 72-73

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I had a great time with 2 clients today - one from Chicago. We fished for about 6 1/2 hrs - they got lost and were an hour late. We missed the early bite and fishing was slow by the time we got started. Another bluebird day with no clouds - but, a slight breeze. I was happy that the man from Chicago caught the first bass drop-shotting a Robo worm - since he had just found out that his city had lost their Olympic bid. I got a spoon fish and that was it for awhile. About noon, near Big Island - we found some bait and willing bass and the other client caught his first spoon bass. The 'sexy shad' Robo was a hit for my drop-shot client - he caught the biggest and the most - a smallie almost 3 lbs. Most bass were 25 to 45 feet. It was had to catch any bass mid-day in flat calm water. Chase the breezes! We wound up with 16-17 bass - 6 nice ones.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: Keep looking for bait - it is still really scattered. The spoon bite will just get better as the water cools and the bait starts "balling" up. I threw jigs a little but no takers.

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 78-82

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Basin Bassmasters of Loomis did there tournament out of Markley Cove. 12 teams left the marina with the hopes of coming back in with a big bag, but only one team blanked. For most of them the north paned out with top water baits near the weed lines, some anglers were back in the covers. We found spoon-in in deeper water was ok but no keepers. Back in Rage cove drop shot in a cove we found our first keeper at 1:30 and within 30 minutes we had our limit. At the weigh in the best bag was 11.37 and second 10.71. Most on top water all day.
    City: Rocklin

    Tips: In backs of coves in the main body

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    Water Temp: 75

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: On the water @ 7AM had good fish on top water in 3-10' early then several fish on drop shot in Putah creek,rattle trap,and rip bait. At 102 degrees not a bad day. Best 5 @ 11#. C'mon cool weather
    City: Penn Valley

    Tips: Will be glad to see jet ski's off the water. Mr. Hemphill you are my hero.

Friday, September 25th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 78

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Made another trip to have a little more fun spooning with Mark Fong. The area we were in exploded with action for several hours from the surface down to 50ft. I agree there are shallow fish and with the cooler nights and water temp. the shallow fishing should only get better. The bigger shad are starting to move up and the bass are there following them.
    The previous reports were not ment ot say that all the bass are deep, just that when they are schooled up down there and you can find them feeding, it's a blast!!
    City: Sacramento

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

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    Water Temp: ?

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Not much of a report, more of an observation...most of the posts at Berryessa lately have talked about fish in 35-40 foot depths and no big fish shallow but I had a different observation today. While my wife rode her bike in preparation for the Berryessa triathlon Oct. 3rd I walked around Oak Shores and saw MANY fish from shore. There were plenty of young ones but lots of bass in the 2-3+ lb range easily seen cruising the shore line. The cool thing was that there were all 3 species of black bass and they were traveling in packs of 2 or more.

    I was only able to fish for 1/2 an hour since I had my 3 month old boy to tend to but I caught one small fish and had several bites that I couldn't convert (a screaming kid and a fishing rod in your arms makes setting the hook hard I found!)
    City: Napa

    Tips: Basically, don't let the reports stear you away from a day at your favorite water hole. You might find different conditions than what you read. Bob Button was flying his L-39 Albatross jet over the lake today too so there was a private airshow making the trip worth it as well. Just get out there. Don't be lured away by a few bad reports.

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

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    Water Temp: 75

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: I was up on Sunday getting schooled by a good friend Rick Tietz of Blade Runner Bait Company. He showed me that most if not all of the better fish are from 30 to 45 feet deep. We caught 20 fish from 2.5 to 3 pounds. Creek channels leading into any cove we fished showing bait and Bass 30 to 45 feet produced fish. It was all I could do to keep from putting on a topwater bait but almost all the fish we saw busting the surface were small. All of our fish came on Blade Runner spoons in Morning Dawn and Black and White 1 3/4 oz. We saw a lot of suspended fish and caught some of them just dropping the spoon down and looking at the graph as the spoon went down to the fish.
    City: Sacramento

    Tips: Good electronics are a must.

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 75

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Got to the lake early not hoping for a lot. Decided to fish topwater only and to hit as many spots as possible before 10a. Ended up with a lot of boils, but not a lot of boated fish. Made about 6 stops in 3 hrs and there were active fish on 3 of them. Hooked more than a few, but only boated a few. They were popping it, but not real hungry; probably either wrong baits or rythymn. Biggest fish felt like it was 3+, but it unbuttoned at the boat. (it was still dark and couldn't see squat) After about 9, it died. Loosened the drags at 11a.
    City: orinda

    Tips: Used a Vixen and a popper. Both got action with the larger vixen getting bigger fish, and the smaller popper getting more action. Blades and rip bait = 0. Some fish were in 2-3ft and I caught some over 30ft. If your graph is blank and there are no fish working the surface, it's time to move. Graphed suspended fish, but did not graph any fish on the bottom. Lotsa bait around.
    The parking lot was full and the ramp was busy @noon.

Friday, September 11th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 74-78

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Launched at 7:30, hit the first spot and found a bunch a fish at 35', but couldn't get them to bite. Caught one on a spoon, but that was it.
    Spent time on the shore with my other and dog. It was very relaxing and nice to watch 11yr Sadie swimming, shaking and rolling in the dirt. Didn't spend a lot of time fishn, as this was the dog's day. Did see enough bait on top and periodic feeding fish to encourage a fishing trip next time. Called it a day @1pm, it was about a 100 degree and Sadie was tired. Only caught 2 keeps, and some dinks, but there were signs of life.....thanks mike

    Tips: Keeping moving around until you graph fish or see activity on top. In the areas I saw nothing, I got the same. When there was activity, usually we would get a boil or two or some small fish. East side had more activity than the west side.

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 75-80

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Rick Tietz and I hit Berryessa today to tune up for our upcoming spooning seminar at Fisherman's Warehouse tomorrow night - 6 pm! We are very excited to do the seminar now since we had an outstanding day!! About 4:30 pm we found a school of bass feeding on shad and we had non-stop action for about an hour, using 3/4 to 1 3/4 oz Blade Runner (Duh!) spoons. They were still biting but we had to leave for home. We had 3 or 4 double hookups and several good fish. We caught smallies up to 3 1/4 lbs and several quality largemouth and spots over 2 1/2 lbs. Most were above average size school fish. Our best 5 weighed over 14 lbs. I don't really know how many we caught in our 7 hr trip - somewhere between 40 and 50 bass. We also got into a good spoon bite earlier, around 1 pm. We were fishing the main body from the mouth of the narrow to Putah Creek. Black/white and morning dawn colored spoons were our best colors.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: I did drop-shot 2 nice bass on MMIII Robo worms, all the rest were on 3/4 to 1 3/4 oz spoons. Yes, our arms were sore at the end of the trip. Most of the bass were suspended which forced us to work the spoons at different depths rather than the usual lifting off the bottom. That takes a little more skill but is more fun since you are always guessing if you have a hit or not. Most of our bass were at the 40 foot depth, but we caught some from 25 feet to nearly 60 feet. I thought the bite was really special for 2 days after Labor Day weekend.

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    Water Temp: ?

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: i fished the north west part of the lake about 200 yards off shore off a point, i was actually trolling with my dad for Kokanne/steelhead. We hooked into a school of smallies and every pass we made atleast one of the rods would go down. It was probably about 30 feet or so, just try to make a long cast let her sink and reel it in real slow, with a little chrome hopkins spoon and hang on. I have also caught a 4 pound spot like that on Yessa
    City: napa ca

    Tips: good luck and let me know how it went

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

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    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Hey Mike,

    One more question: how deep?

    thanks,

    worm

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

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    Water Temp: 75

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Fished the back end of Skier's Cove for cats and bass for about 6 hours yesterday from the shore. No luck with the bass, was trying constantly around weed beds and drop offs with a red brush hog on a texas rig for about 3.5 hours. The bass bite has been sluggish recently at the lake, along with most of the other fish. We did nab a 4-6 lb. cat about 8:15 pm, but only after we switched from mackerel on our cat rigs to a few of the freshwater clams we found along the shoreline.
    City: Napa

    Tips: Give the clams a try, I know I definitely will again. Also, actively searching for bass might be futile until the bite picks up and conditions improve. My advice for Berryessa, come out with cat rigs and your favorite bait, bring some beer and your buddies, and have a nice relaxing day.

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 78

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I think that you just might go to Clear Lake or the Delta. The bite here is off, but we managed to pick up a few draging a leach on a split shot. I did see someone get one top water. stay in 15-35 ft, the bigger fish are in 30-45 ft but they will not bite ?
    City: Rocklin

Monday, August 10th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 79-81

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Was out on Monday with 2 clients. The day was slow to say the least. All of the fish we caught where on a drop-shot rig in 30 feet north of Big Island. Did not have a topwater bite at all this time. Lots of bait from 10 to 20 feet but no feeders. Graphed lots of fish from 28 to 35 feet but not very hungry. Lets hope for cooler nights.
    City: Sacramento

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 75-76

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Launched at 7am and caught 7 bass. Biggest was 4lbs. Purple Senko, purple Senko, purple Senko.....need I say more? Fish slowwwwwww.
    City: Fairfield

    Tips: Don't launch at the "free launch" on weekends as the wait was 15 cars long when trying to leave at noon.

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

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    Water Temp: 79-82.5

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Arrived at the lake at 5:15AM and launched. Fished top water in putcha creek and got a few strikes but nothing big. Tried double leaf spinners in and around weed beds and had a few more strikes. Then my buddy in the back of the boat started fishing around dead trees with yum crawdads. He hooked into a nice 7lb 14oz large mouth. A few minutes later he hooked into another bass that went 3lb 6oz. He had a good day.
    City: Napa

    Tips: Berry is a tough bite this season. Every one I asked had the same day I had. Very few bites and very few in between. Good luck.

Monday, June 29th, 2009

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    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: anyone have any tips on catching these koke salmon? Taken POP out trolling for salmon n wants to spend quailty time with the old man. Any tips be great...Thnks !!!
    City: elk grove

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 76

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Took the day off. Fished four hours in the narrows from 8:00 A.M to 12:00 P.M.. Caught 4 spots to 14 inches. Tried Spook nada, tried Rip Bait nada. Ended up catching 1 on a pearl Gitzit, 1 on a 1/2 oz Spinner bait, 1 on a split shot 4.5 inch sexy shad Robo worm and 1 on a green weenie. Lost a nice one on the sexy shad Robo. Got off the lake before it got too hot!!!
    City: W,Sac

    Tips: Robo Worm's new Sexy Shad Worm is going add weight to a lot of fishermen's weigh in bags!!!!

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 73-77

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: After a bit of a hot spell in the valley, I thought the top water would kick in. I started with spooks in the wraggs canyon area. Missed a few before hooking up with a few spots, then started casting a fat free shad across points and around wood. That did not produce. Again tied on a drop shot rig and worked the same area and caught two lgmth in ten minutes and four more in the next hour and half. After graffing a school of bait fish in 35 feet of water with fish feeding on them in the main body I hovered over and dropped a tube bait and hooked up with a bunch of 1 and 1 and half pounders.
    City: Napa

    Tips: I just kept casting and casting until I got strikes with the spooks hopping they would turn on. Most of my fish were quite deep considering its June. Good Luck.

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 78

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Took POP out fishing for father's day fishing for bass, trout , and kokanee. Fish on the out side of POPE creek n saw smallie blowing up everywhere. Trip me out. Pop got first bit on popper. Then I threw crankbait n got a hit. Another bass swam beside the one that i hook up. Pop threw down a drop shot close to the fish i hook up and BAMMM !! Double hook up. Got pop hella happy. Threw crankbait out again n got another one. Saw another fish with it n pop did the same shit n got another double. It's a trip how spot n smallie mingle together like that. Most of the bass we caught was on crankbait,drop shot, poppers, and then spinnerbait(bluegills colors). We fish around 15-25 ft of water n mostly on points. It's true..Don't know where all the 3 plus lbs bass are at. Last Week we did better with couple 3 lbs n lost one close to 3lbs.
    City: elk grove

    Tips: I think Don be catching all these 3lbs plus bass n hide them on a clove or creek somewhere so his client be catching them.. I think it's time to hire Don again..haha.. Don <--- great guy