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Berryessa Lake and Reports

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Sunday, December 28th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 52-54

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished by myself today my boys were sick and I had a new pole to break in. Checked the water temp first and found it to be 52 so I thought crank bite. Cranked for 1 1/2 hours with out a bite noticed that the fish were pinned to the bottom in 25-40 feet. Switched to a jig and had a fish in 5 min. Stayed with the jig and picked up 4 more all in the 2lb range plus a small mouth spot cross that was 4.25lbs. Picked up a few on drop shot and brushhog. All the fish were nice sized running 2 to the 4.25 pounder. Around 9 fish total 5 best at 13lbs.
    City: Vacaville

    Tips: Most of the jig fish picked up the bait and ran at the boat so reel up until you feel the fish before setting the hook. Fish slow.

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

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    Water Temp: 55

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished south end of the main lake, north end of the narrows, and Big Island area. The water is extremely clear. No muddy runoff yet. Me and my partner fished from 1030 AM to 130 PM. Caught 4 Spots to 1-1/2 lbs. on jigs and shakey head worms.
    City: Fairfield

    Tips: Fish slow. Pressure bites.

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

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    Water Temp: 55-57

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Went out with my fishin buddy John. Rain all day light winds fished mostly in the narrows and a little bit on the main lake. Ended up catching around 14 most were spots with a few smallmouths, all were decent size 2-4 pounds. caught them on drop shot and jigs. brown/purple jigs and prism shad straight 6"worms.
    City: San Mateo

    Tips: find area's of thick structure, baitfish by structure would be a bonus, good luck have fun Merry Christmas.

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 57.5

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Friday I went out by myself, filled up the tank, got minnows so I would be ready for Saturday morning. I fished for about three hours and only caught four bass. Two were caught on brass and glass by the boat docks as I threw into the empty slips and two were caught by structure. It was a tough bite. My fishing buddy wanted to go out for trout while I waited for him to come down I caught two trouts at the dock on the surface chasing minnows with a minus lure. The water was 57.5 degrees and there was a difinite chill in the air. We headed straight towards the narrows and we trolled from the boulders pass the ski school with not even one bite. I trolled a minus lure on one end and a repala that went down six to eight feet in a shad color on the other end with no luck. My buddy threw to shore a top water lure and no blow ups. The water was like glass not even a ripple but no fish breaking on the top. I met Barney and Ed and they were fishing with a minnow and a split shot on the bottom and they only caught one bass. I told them to follow me to my favorite cove and let's see if we can change your luck. There was a slight drift and they started at one end and came towards me. Their first fish that they picked up at the point was an 8 - 10 lb catfish. They did the drift again and caught a trout and a bass. Then they came to us where the markers were and I told them that was where the crappies were they saw them on their screen but they had to leave. They caught all their fish in the shadow and let me tell you if it was cool in the sun it was cold in the shadows but they said it was worth it and thanked me for bringing them there and showing them this new spot (see photo). I caught a 10 lb catfish on mackerel which is a great bait for cats. 'til next weekend..................................................good fishing!!!!
    www.fishingconnection.net If you have any stories you would like to share please email me at bestguide@hotmail.com or call me at 650-583-3333.
    City: Napa

    Tips: water gin clear,signs of trout on top,bass must eat even with colder water.

Friday, December 5th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 58-60

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Followed Rick Tietz advice and was finally able to spoon and dropshot quite a few fish. Thanks Tietz for the post! Found the fish in the Narrows in 50 ft of water suspended 10 ft off bottom. Dropshot worked best at 11am - 1pm. At 1pm 3/4 oz spoon bite picked up. At 2pm a light wind picked up, the sun was down a bit and a haze covered it (all causing the water to darken quite a bit), the 1 3/4oz Duh spoon bite was going!
    City: Elk Grove

    Tips: If spooning not working, try using dropshot in the same manner just slower...

Friday, November 28th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 61

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: My good friend Lenn Jann invited me to go fishing today and I really needed to. We starting looking for shad schools in 40 - 75ft. and wasn't long before we found bait and massive numbers of fish. the 1-3/4oz. morning dawn Duh!! spoon seemed to be the best choice. We tried other spoons and drop-shotting but always went back to morning dawn. We caught and released way over 100 bass and also had a couple big catfish, a salmon and 2 kokanee.
    City: Sacramento

    Tips: Watch for birds diving in the creek channels bettween 40 to 70ft.,they can tell you where the bait fish are.

Friday, November 21st, 2008

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    Water Temp: 61.5

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Well, this was my first fall trip to Berry. My goal was to only fish where I found a decent amount of bait. I mainly wanted to see how much bait I could find. I did not find much. I caught a few few fish in the spots were I found the bait - dropshoted most and spooned 1. A mixed bag of spots, sm, & lm. Overall though I stuck to my plan and ended up not getting my line too wet. I looked for bait for 5 hours and only fished for about 1 hr. I hope something changes over the next few weeks or this year will be nothing like last year...
    City: Elk Grove

    Tips: Just about as the the post says below fish were from 20-40 ft.

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 59 - 63

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Went out to Berryessa with Tiger. Started throwing topwater about 7:30 on the east shore by the willows. No luck with that. Tiger got the first fish on a Senko @ 9:45. Another 5 minutes later. He had six before I got my first. I'll just call it good guiding.... Alltogether we got 16 bass and a 2 pound trout on a drop shot. Plus we lost a few near the boat. 11 on Drop shot and the rest on Senko. None on Jig or Shakey head and no luck with bottom walker or hollow body swimbaits. One fish on top water late. Biggest fish 2 lbs and mis of LMB, SMB & Spots. Beautiful weather and very little traffic. Game warden stopped by, very polite and said thanks for having our license displayed and practicing catch and release.
    City: Pacifica

    Tips: Tiger got more bites... he downsized to 6 & 8# line. I think that helped. Pluse he is a better fisherman. We used stink on the plastics I think that helped as well. Most fish came on points or rock walls in 20 - 35' of water.

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    Water Temp: 61.5

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: I got to the lake late Friday evening and prepared to take my friend Craig and his daughters Cady and Tiye for an outing on
    Saturday. They arrived at around noon on Saturday and we trolled towards my favorite cove. Tiye hooked onto a fish using
    a fire tiger crankbait and she brought it almost all the way to the boat but needed a little help from her dad. Her sister Cady
    helped in netting the fish which was a nice bass about 1.5 lbs. Next Cady hooked onto a 2 lb. bass and Tiye and her dad helped
    net it. The girls thought it was so easy catching fish I decided to take them to a spot where I knew fish were holding to this
    tree in twenty-seven feet of water. Using four pound test line, a small hook and a splitshot about nine inches up we lowered a
    minnow down towards the bottom and brought it up slowly. Tiye hooked up to a 2.5 pound spotted bass. The rod bent all the
    way over and I thought she and the rod would go over board. But with help from her sister and dad they managed to land
    the bass. Cady also landed a nice size bass at that spot. They limited out in the two hours we fished and had a great time.
    When we got back to the dock they wouldn't hold the fish for pictures so I held it for them (see photo). Sunday morning I
    took Greg out for a few hours. We started out at around eight in the morning and went to the same spot I had fished with
    the girls the day before. Greg got hit by a nice size bass which weighted aprox. 3.5 to 4 pounds as he was bringing it to the
    boat and was within an arms reach of it, I told him not to lift the head out of the water but unfortunately I was too late and
    the fish spit the hook out and took off. We all know that feeling!!!! Greg did land some nice size bass having learned his
    lesson but none as big as the one that got away. Tom, who I guided in the past, came into the cove and showed me his
    Cobalt boat that he rigged for fishing. I told him to try trolling at Big Island and he called me later in the day and told me
    that trolling worked for him. It appears that the best way to cover a lot of ground is to troll while you look for bait fish or
    some other sign of fish activity. 'til next week................................................................good fishing!!!!!!!!!!
    www.fishingconnection.net If you would like to share any fishing stories please email me at bestguide@hotmail.com
    or call me at 650-583-3333.
    City: Napa

    Tips: fish hard and enjoy life

Monday, November 10th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 62

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished against my buddy A.K.A "Come Back Kid" All I needed to do is win today and I would have won our best of seven series. I didn't, he waxed me. C.B.K. stuck with a top water pattern all day which rewarded him with over 7 pounds for 4 fish. He fished the Narrows with a Super Spook. He told me not to give out the color. He said he tried other lures but got 0 bites. I tried a trout colored Super Spook, 0 takers. I saw bait balls but could not get them to bite. I couldn't get bit in the lower end on anything, so I took off for Putah Creek. After wading through about 10 dinks I managed to catch two keeper fish dragging a reaper with the current. All in all it was a beautiful day on the lake only saw 2 other bass boats.
    City: W. Sac

    Tips: The Super Spook can be deadly especially on cloudy days. Once the lake turns I'll be back. Hey Sid, I checked out your fishing website, how do you know so many famous people?

Friday, November 7th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 61

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Caught fish (ie. Sm bass, Lg mouth bass, catfish and two hard heads) on shacky head, flick shake, zara spook, spoon and frog. We spent most of the day in the vineyards, but traveled around a lot looking for bait. Found some bait early off a point in 60 feet of water. We came back to it at the end of the day and used spoons for a few fish. We had to work hard for 11 keeper bass. Frog fish was caught near the weeds.
    City: millbrae

    Tips: Fish slow and shack the worm as soon as it hit the water. Fish want an active bait.

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Look for balls of bait in the Narrows off points. Spoons fished down through the bait are doing good. Drop-Shot Robo worms in Arons Magic or Prizom Shad are also doing well. If you like reaction baits try the early bite on the flats with Zarra Spooks or Don Ivino splash-its. Most of the fish have been spots out of the Narrows.
    City: sacramento

    Tips: Move around and look for surface activity early. Then go deep.

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 65

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Got out early this morning around 6:50am. First cast and slammed a 4lber on a Triple Trout. 10-15 cast later slammed another one. 6lbs. Get out now!!!!!!! Love these $$$ swimbaits. But they work. Caught 3, 1-2lbers on a "Gene Larew Biffle-O Lizard Blk" split shotting. Left lake @ 1pm. GOING BACK!!!! jimmiejimmiejohnjohn
    City: Vacaville

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 67

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Took my boys up to the lake for short trip. Did not get on the water until 8:30 off at 1:00. Warm day and flat conditions made for a tough reaction bite. Only 9 fish total but we did get some quality bites on the brush hog. One spot at 3.5 one Small Mouth 4.0 and two of the Large Mouth over 2.5lbs. The rest of the fish around 1.0-1.7lbs. 5 best at 15lbs.
    City: Vacaville

    Tips: It was tough for the reaction bite but I was able to find some shade when we started and got on some topwater. As the topwater died I picked up a few on the lipless crank. That was it for the reaction My 4 year old was on fire he cought the big spot and lost a big Large Mouth that looked around 4 plus. The big Small Mouth also came on a brush hog. The fish seemed to be a transition into a fall pattern but with this warm weather it has just not set in yet. It will pick up with the weather change later this week.

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    Water Temp: 64

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: This past Friday I took Tom out for the day. We headed out towards the ranch house at first light.
    We trolled from the Narrows towards the two points at the Ranch house. There was no surface
    activity in fact the water was very calm almost too calm. It stayed that way most of the day. We
    could see the bass but catching them was a different story. We tried everything but could not entice
    them to bite until we tried a River2Sea jerk bait which finally produced a few small bass. We trolled to
    the vineyards and being the water is so low we saw a lot of structure which should be helpful in the
    future. It was a real slow day for us. On Saturday it improved a little more but not much. Albert and
    I had a little more luck trolling. Albert landed a brown trout as we were heading out of the marina and
    sure enough as we were heading back into the marina he landed another nice trout. We tried our crappie
    tree that had been so successful last weekend but to no avail. My friend Al from Pacifica called me and
    told me he had nine bites on Friday and landed four and on Saturday he caught fourteen bass on jigs fishing
    Putah Creek along the points. Sunday I took his advice and went out for a few hours and ended up landing
    six bass, two using brass & glass with a watermelon black fleck senko with six pound Pline and Procure crawdad
    scent, two on a River2Sea crawdad and two on floating tube bait with splitshot. All my bass were caught on
    the bottom using a very slow retrieve. There was no surface activity around me all day. It was a tough
    weekend but still had a lot of fun. Hope you enjoy the photos. 'til next week..................good fishing!!!!!
    www.fishingconnection.net If you have any stories you would like to share please email me at
    bestguide@hotmail.com or call me at 650-583-3333.
    City: Napa

    Tips: Bottom very slow or jerk baits very fast

Friday, October 24th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 63-66

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I guided a trip on Thursday . The bite was on and off,we would catch a bunch of fish on a spot, then nothing , until we found another group of fish. The fish were real hard to pattern. Most of them were on chunk rock in 20 feet of water, on the steeper banks. Most of our fish were caught on brown and purple shaky head worms,with a few on crankbaits. We could not get bit on topwater.
    City: Livermore

    Tips: If you find some fish , stay on that spot and catch all of them.

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: My friend and I did pretty well we caught 20 or so fish best fish was an 8 pound 5 ounce largemouth on a triple trout we also caught fish on shakeyhead brushhog lipless crankbait spinnerbait senko & popper. All fish were caught on the main lake.

    Tips: Swimbaits work you have to be relentlessin thier use.

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    Water Temp: 63 to 65

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: We caught 17 bass and 1 trout. Moved around until we found bait and fish. Used mostly spoons. Drop shot and darter head caught 2 fish. Started in the narrows then moved out to the main lake. I do not believe the lake has turned over yet. Fish bit spoons dead stick and jigging.
    City: Millbrae

    Tips: keep it movin...Movin, Movin, Movin. Got to keep it Movin!

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

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    Water Temp: 65 -68

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Wednesday, Oct. 22, my fishing buddy and I started on the flats (vineyards) about 9 AM. The stained water temperature was 65

    Tips: Look for weeds and diving birds. The water is now low enough to locate submerged trees off shore at the vineyards.

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

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    Water Temp: 66

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: We launched out of Markley Cove at 6:30am with no wind and hopes of a great day of fishing. Colin (13) decided to show off and catch the first fish of the day. I have to say I did show him where to cast his lure!!! :) We caught 6 fish for the day all on different lures. Watermelon with black flake Senkos seemed to be the most productive.
    City: Sacramento

    Tips: All our fish were caught on points with grass very shallow!