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Wednesday, April 5th, 2006

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    Water Temp: 54

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Duck Hunt, Launch out of Cappell Cove (it's free). Recent reports have shown that bass are being caught in pope creek, putah creek and off the small island. The weather has been weird, so the depth varies. At Berryessa, green and purple senkos drop-shotted always works and during the spawn, craw and shad colored cranks in the gravel flats nail the big ones.
    City: Vacaville

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    Water Temp: 54

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: I have heard that 1000 christmas trees were sunk in the lake recently. Does anyone know where that is?
    City: Vacaville

Sunday, April 2nd, 2006

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    Water Temp: 53.7

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: What a beautiful day. Hardly anyone out, no rain and plenty of fish. Fished the points and caught SMB up to 2.5lbs. Drop shot and Senko - watermelon and white. Top 5 went 10.10lbs Smaller fish (Spots) inside coves and along brush. Went back out to main lake and narrows to catch bigger fish off of points. Bite was very light. Larger fish in 20+ feet
    City: South SF

Saturday, April 1st, 2006

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    Water Temp: 52-54

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Fished Sat and Sun. Fished seemed to be staged on the points. Never had much success fishing in the backs of cuts and coves. The best fishing came in the wind on Sat. Really seemed to activate the fish. I had trouble getting bites during the calm period on Sun. morning. Fished mostly 6in. worms on dart heads and brass and glass. Couldn't get much of a jig or senko bite going. I had a different partner on Sun. who threw real small baits on a lite texas rig and he got a lot more bites than I did. Had my first bite on a swim bait but didn't hook up. A couple of friends that were also out had swimbait fish on Sun. One of those fish was a smallmouth. Caught a lot of fish, just no big fish. A fun weedend on a new lake for me.
    City: Clovis, CA

    Tips: When the wind blows throw a spinner bait or other reaction baits. Caught my best largemouth on Sat. on a big spinnerbait in the wind. Same bite materialized on Sun. also.

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    Water Temp: 50-52

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Writing this report, not because i did well, but hopefully this info helps..Most of the day had a mixture of showers, brief sun and blue skies, wind and RAIN. Didn't really get a pattern with the exception of throwing a stayCee. Ended up with about 12 fish the largest was 2.75 female smallie. No lmb. All fish except 2 jig fish were on the rip bait in less than 10'. A month ago the jig bite was pretty good, lately it seems like a stanky bait..probably shoulda dropped shot.
    City: orinda

    Tips: not alot except i think the fish are relating to more minnow type lures than crawdad types...water level was lower than two weeks ago...

Monday, March 27th, 2006

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    Water Temp: 52 thru 54

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Subject : Fishing with Sid

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    This month will be the wettest month on record and needless to say the lake is full. The photo attached is of the father and son team, David and Andrew, who fished with me this past week. They did an excellent job considering the conditions that day. We caught trout and bass. The largest bass weighed a little over three pounds. The next day Jerry went out with me and landed an 8.5 pound bass using a watermelon red senco with brass and glass. On Friday I took Tim out. The weather conditions were not the greatest, it was windy and wet most of the day. Our first stop was in one of my favorite coves for small mouth bass. It took Tim approximately five minutes to catch two bass. We continued to use brass and glass. He came equipped with an accuvue and a GPS to find the fish and mark the locations. Unfortunately the water only had about a foot and a half of visibility. On Saturday the wind was howling and it rained heavily off and on most of the day. In the late afternoon it settled down and my wife and I ventured out to my favorite cove and she showed me up by catching fish left and right. Sunday was a beautiful spring day and we started out fairly early and went to the big island. My wife was using a watermelon senco with brass and glass and yelled to me that she was stuck then she yelled no it's a fish I grabbed the net and headed towards the stern where I saw this huge largemouth bass jump out of the water. My wife reeled the fish to the back of the boat and within inches of netting it her line broke. This is the second time that a ten pound plus fish broke off before we could net it. Good news, if you see Dino at Spanish Flats and give him a ten dollar tip he will show you on a map where they dumped 1,000 weighted christmas trees in the lake. If you have any fishing stories you would like to share please email me at bestguide@hotmail.com come visit us and look at pictures at www.fishingconnection.net 'til next week......................................good fishing!!!!!!!!!
    City: Napa

    Tips: When your wife in 3 years gets a ten plus to the boat,make sure she can release the fish instead of breaking off at the last minuete

Saturday, March 25th, 2006

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    Water Temp: 50-53

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: First trip of the year to Berryessa with my brother. Fished the northern end of the lake mostly in Putah Creek. First fish was taken by my brother at Rancho Monticello campground, about a 1.5 lb smallie. Picked up 2 more smallies before heading up the creek. First stop the boyscout camp cove. Nothing. Went up the creek and fished the south side in flats from shore to 15 ft. Picked up 6 fish mostly smallies but 1 largemouth at 4.5 lbs. Headed back down to the lake and fished the shoreline south of the boyscout camp and picked up 5 more, mostly smallies, 1 spotted and 1 largemouth at 3 lbs.
    Used ring worms in a variety of colors and caught fish on all of them. The 2 largemouth were caught on brush hogs. Rain off and on most of the day. Fished from 9AM to 3PM.
    City: Sacramento

    Tips: The largemouth are sluggish and not on a reaction bite as the water is still too cold. Smallies hit like a rocket. Fish the points for the smallies. Once we get some warmer weather the largemouth will be on a great bite.

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    Water Temp: 51-55

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: I had a busy week with guide trips Tue, Thurs and Fri. I guess I have covered the world now having had clients from as far as Japan and now from South Africa. He and I fished Thurs and Fri and did quite well for smaller bass. Big females were hard to entice. He started well on Thurs morning with his FIRST cast producing a 2-7 spotted bass on a chartreuse/white Blade Runner spinnerbait! Welcome to America!! He is a bass pro from S. Africa and he landed that bass like a pro!! I think he is in second place now in their national circuit - an excellent fisherman!!! He loved that spinnerbait and I couldn't get it out of his hands for two days and gave it to him as a souvenir! After 18 bass and 20 or so misses on that lure in the two days - it was still in perfect shape. The unfortunate event of the two days happened in Wragg canyon after the rain started Fri afternoon. We pulled up on a point and I got a 2-2 smallie right away on a brown/orange Rodstrainer jig. He had picked a baby bass color small fat-free shad to throw, catching a few on it. As we moved to the inside of the point which had deep water near it, he threw - cranked once or twice - and stuck a hog. I'm not sure what happened but we never saw that crankbait again as the 12 lb test broke and the fish never surfaced. Not a nice California welcome!! The gentleman was not used to tangling with bass like that!!! Thurs was the only warmish day of March and the bite was fair but we only put 12 in the boat. We didn't fish every minute as I showed him much of the lake. He loved it! Lots of missed fish on jigs and spinnerbaits. We were throwing big baits looking for big fish. Friday I went to a smaller bait, landing a near 3 lb spot on a 4" Berkley green lizard. As the rain moved in the fishing picked up a bit and I lost count after 20 bass in the boat. Our limit Thurs might have gone 10 1/2 lbs. I had another excellent fisherman with me on Tues and he did well getting a limit as the fishing was very slow. I caught a few myself and a trout of all things! We studied the meter a lot as I was showing him some of the nice off-shore structure Berryessa offers. He was doing well on a purple jig of his. The highlight of the day was only seeing 4 boats - and only 2 were bass boats.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: It is hard to give constructive tips when the weather is so stormy and the lake is not only above full pool but still dropping a bit. Lots of trees have fallen in the water in the narrows as a result of storms. We saw several mudslides too. The reaction baits were working the best certainly on Thurs and Fri. The jig bite has slowed a lot - at least in my boat. I imagine small baits would work well, but we didn't fish them much even though the big spot fell for one. We threw swimbaits a lot on Tues and I threw one some on Thurs - nothing.

Friday, March 24th, 2006

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    Water Temp: 51-54

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Very interesting day today. I had a party of two today, both avid fisherman. They wanted to know how to establish a pattern within a pattern. With the weather forcast for rain (which it did) my hands were full. In the Dam Area I established a pattern in creeks using depthfinders to find the baitfish. Accomplished that with the resolt of 3 fish and 1 miss. Running in and out of canyons I found 2 out of 5 with fish moving in to spawn, average depth 25-30ft.

    Ran to the West bank of the main lake about 10 in the morning and established another pattern with totally a different weather seniorio. We caught around 12-15fish by fishing windy banks pertected by shelfs or points. These fish were feeding on anything that blew over there heads and were suspended off the bottom. Biggiest fish went around 2 1/2lbs with a lot of 2's and 1/3/4lb smallmouth. We only caught two largemouth and about 5 spots out of the total fish for the day. We were done by 2:30.
    City: Rio Vista

    Tips: Go too your favorite area look at the conditions and think outside the box. You will be surprised of the results.

Thursday, March 23rd, 2006

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    Water Temp: ???

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Got on the water abot 0800, caught my first fish on a watermelon senko at 0825. Caught one more in the next hour on a 6" t-rig fat Robo in Oxblood. Fished points with scattered shale in the north end for a total of 6 fish, smallmouth, LM, and a spot. Quit at 1230. Let's pray for a warm week...no rain=warmer water=good fishing!!!
    City: Davis

    Tips: Fish are still really inactive, but fishing the slower baits will probably yield a few bass. Oxblood worked for me, I talked to a guy catching them on "shad" colored baits.

Saturday, March 18th, 2006

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    Water Temp: 53-56

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: FISHED OUT OF PUTAH CREEK RESORT.. STATRTED UP PUTAH CREEK .. REALLY MUDDY AND LOTS Of DEBRIS.. caught several fish but biggest a 3.5 smallie.. all fish caught drop shotting or wacky worming a cut tail . must have some red.. no reaction bite
    City: SUNNYVALE

    Tips: by the time we weighed in at 3:30 it was really nasty and hard to get boats on trailer. thought i was at clear lake.. we had one boat swamped and really had a group effort to get it out of water .. it took 11.25 to win our tourney .. be careful on water . and oh yea once again to all you @#$ 5 mile an hour speed limit up putah creek !!!!!!!

Thursday, March 16th, 2006

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    Water Temp: 51=53

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Fished out of pleasure cove. Began 930 am. Mixture of wind, rain,sun. Tough fishing. Two of us only caught 10 fish, mostly drop shotting in 4-30 ft. of water,mostly points. Most fish caught on evening bite 4 pm on. One senko fish. Mostly spotties. Largest 2.5 lbs.
    City: clayton

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006

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    Water Temp: 54

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: First time on this lake in awhile and getting ready for this weekends tourney. It was dead slow in the morning. Tried just about everything. I then remembered the report I read before I left in the morning. took the advice and busted out the Flying Lures. It's been awhile, but there they were in the bottom of the last storage spot on the 1987 Ranger. Spalt a 5lbr, splat a 4lbr then nothing during the hail storm. Found the "Tornado," a spinnerbait with a different kind of blade in the same box. I used it and never looked back. had 30 in the boat by noon. best five went around 28lbs. Forget about Amestad, Berryessa kicks butt!!! Told a guy at the ramp about my amazing day and he told me he did well with his Pocket Fisherman too, he stroked them. remember to think outside the box, you never know.
    City: Ryde

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    Water Temp: 53

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Took your advice Mike (report below) and busted out my Hula Poppers. The skirts were stuck together, but it was the spitting action that drew the strikes. Best five went 22lbs- I can't continue. Sorry Tony, I'm in town for the Future Pro here and a couple of my buddies were looking for some intel when I saw this post.
    City: Battle Ground Wa

Monday, March 13th, 2006

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    Water Temp: 52

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Had a great day. Windy, cold , rain but the fish were bitting. Had 10 before 9:00 am. Tried everything early then decided to go with something that worked years ago for me here. A Roland Martin Helicopter in white. Stuck a 4lb right off the bat in the Vineyards, then worked my way up the north bank. Boom, a 7lbr, boom another 4lber then Boom a 9lbr. Ended the day with 25+ fish on the Ol' Helicopter, all biggins over 2lbs each. Best five went 26 lbs. Have fun, don't forget to try something different that you have not done in awhile, sure worked for me.
    City: napa

Sunday, March 12th, 2006

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    Water Temp: COLD

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Not a great day. Fished with Tiger and Steve. Tried several spots to prep for FTP next weekend. First fish at 8:00 last fish at 2:20 only landed 9 fish. 2.1 SMB largest and 9.5 best 5. Hardly enough to get a check. Clear in the a.m. rained / Hailed as the day progressed. None of those hogs the earlier postings mentioned.
    City: Pacifica

    Tips: None to offer....... we didn't figure them out. Stopped by Spanish flat and Ramp was usable but picnic grounds in immediate area 1/2 under water.... Hope it clears up some before Saturday. Good luck out there!

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    Water Temp: 51 to 53

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Fished swim baits nothing,jigs nothing worms and crankbaits seemed to be the trick for the day.Coolder than #%$#@$%# on the water. Had to stop at Steels to get breakfast and warm up A little.Sure wish we could have some SUN SHINE!!! Best five 11lbs.Fishing was slow for Berryessa this time of year.
    City: Sac

    Tips: Cought fish from 4 to 20ft on the lower end of the lake never made it out on the main body trying new spots.

Wednesday, March 8th, 2006

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    Water Temp: 52-55

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: A lot of bites today, but not many in the boat! A lot of my time was spent dodging debris in the main body - the most I have ever seen!! I had about 12 hookups but only landed a few - the biggest a 2-7 smallie that ate a Blade Runner 5/8 oz white/chartreuse spinnerbait - next to a bush. My jigs got a lot of bites with one good one on for awhile. Most would hit the jig and I would set on nothing! Berryessa bass are the best at that trick! The sun was out from 11 am to 1:30 pm and that was when the fish were the most active. The next front (number 10 I think!) moved in - the wind picked up and the bass started suspending from 20 to 50 feet. I got mad and went home, har!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: The only real tip I can offer is to the weather man - how about some sun in the forcast!! I found a lot of fish at the mouths of coves where there was a breakline, especially if I felt rock. I only fished the eastside and skiers cove in addition to the narrows. Another week or two.....?

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    Water Temp: ON FIRE!!!!!!!!

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Good luck to the everyone fishing the Future Pro Tour I'm coming to KICK SOME BASS this season!!!!
    Going to pre fish this Saturday and going to swing for the fence with swim baits. Never tried them before.See you on the water Charcoal and white BassCat Sabre. Terry
    City: Sac

    Tips: Fish in the water were the fish are!

Tuesday, March 7th, 2006

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    Water Temp: 53.7

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: On the water @ 10:00am, Fished shallows for 2 hours some dinks with 2 nice smallies. Moved up Putah Creek and found nothing. Live bait worked best with very few takers on anything else. Trolled with downrigger for about 4 hours and found 1, 10 in Trout. Windy in the afternoon and calm by 5:00pm. Good day on the water even though the catching was tough.
    City: Angwin

    Tips: I am always looking for more tips from anybody.