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Berryessa Lake and Reports

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Saturday, May 15th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 68-71

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I took the same client that I took last week, along with his brother this time. What a difference a week makes - post spawn is upon my boat, at least! The bass wern't nearly as aggressive as last week and the shallows only had a few carp left. Thurs night was chilly, so naturally the topwater bite didn't happen for us Friday morning. Clients then started fishing worms and I decided to throw a jig since bass have been feeding on crawdads too. Lo and behold I did get a 2-2 largemouth on a jig and missed 2 others. My clients were using worms and small brush hogs and doing very well. High clouds moved over the now golden hillsides and the fish turned on from about 12 to 2 pm. Each client got a big spot - over 17 inches - drifting over a shelf. One weighed 2 lbs 11 oz. The hot bait was the ruby-red small brush hog. While we caught only 22 bass including just 2 dinks - the size was impressive with our 5 biggest nearly 11 pounds. We didn't get any hogs, but lots of largemouth from 2 to 2-6 lbs. The smallmouth bite was very slow for the first time and they were only as big as 1 3/4 lbs. We fished the east shore, Big Island, and the narrows. We had to work harded, but they can still be caught!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: While the fishing conditions were tough - high sun and flat water, the lake appears to have taken on a little color. That is in keeping with the approach of summer. We found fish in areas that had shadows - they are looking for shade now. The bite again was very subtle - be on your toes! I tried Senkos quite a bit, but it didn't happen on Friday. Just caught one. Don't overlook brush hogs and jigs - the bass are feeding on 'dads!

Friday, May 14th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 64 early 74 lat

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I went out with my friend Terry on his boat today, we launched at seven o'clock at the public ramp things started slowly, we fished a couple of points on the main lake with no success, we fished off the big island and picked up a largemouth and a smallmouth in the two pound range. We moved on to Putah creek and started picking up fish, while fishing a narrow point bordered by twenty four feet on either side using a dropshot rig with six pound test and a six inch robo worm I felt a slight peck on my line I set my hook the fish swam towards the boat my friend asked if the fish was of any size and I said no I think it is a small one, all of a sudden the fish took off stripping line from my reel about twenty five yards from the boat it came out of the water it was huge, my friend started steering the boat away from trees and other obstacles after what seemed like hours with the help of my friend we boated the fish it weighed ten pounds four ounces and was twenty six inches long. Had it not been for my friends help with the boat and coaching I would never have been able to land this fish. We weighed and measured it and then released it. We went on to catch thirty one fish total in the two to three pound range all of our fish were caught on the sunny bank where there were large submerged rocks in the water. We caught five fish on crankbaits two fish on spinnerbaits the remainder were caught dropshotting six inch roboworms.
    City: Sonoma

    Tips: Top water is not working right now, dropshotting has worked extremly well for us the last few trips including Berryessa, Sonoma, and even on hennesy. Keep a loose drag you never know when that big one will strike!! FISH ON!!

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Caught my first berryessa bass, smallmouth, 15 inches off the beach in back of my trailer at Putah Creek.
    City: vacaville

Saturday, May 8th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 68 degree

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: New to this forum, here's my take, alot of SM basses caught on spinners 1-2 lbs of the shore. I didn't get into a boat or borrow my buddy bass boat (he sold it) so I decided to fish off shore around Markley cove. Alot of bites for SM basses, didn't hookup any LM basses at all using spinners, cranks, plastics and anything else in my tackle box. They'd probaly went DEEP beyond 15+ feets of water, but the action is great from 7am to 6pm all day. Spinners, cranks, plastics all work plus weightless crawlers. Alot of bluegills everywhere, maybe the LM basses are hitting live fishes... didn't get any minnows, don't want the hassle of carrying a bucket around on shore! Great action.. catched and released all day with SM basses, caught a few crappies with my spinning outfit too, didn't bring my lunker rig, I don't fish lunkers until summertime when they'd are hungry trying to get their weights back from spawning.
    City: Concord

    Tips: Lunkers from shore... FORGET IT! Not possible unless you have a boat. Smallmouths everywhere tossing spinners, plastics, and live crawlers. No size but a few 2 pounds females. Get a ultralight outfit and do some bluegills and crappies fishing! Trout bites too with floated worm slide sinker rig... forget powerbait, trouts don't believe in the stuff at Berryessa.

Friday, May 7th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 65-68

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished from 630am until 230pm.The weather was light overcast where I fished most of the day.I started out the day throwing a big chug bug in bone with orange belly,second cast resulted in a 5lb14 largemouth.Continued fishing the flat and picked up 4 more to 2 1/2 lbs.Mostly smallies.Moved to eastside for nada and across to Big Island.Cast out the Big Bug and noticed my fishfinder depth was messed up so as I bent down to reset it I heard a fish hit the bug,set the hook on my best fish from here ever,8lb2oz.Beautiful fish,released,as were the others.10 fish 29.2lbs,best 5 20.40lbs
    City: Dixon

    Tips: Fish hit the chug bug when it was moving and just sitting there.I think the mylar skirt on the rear treble helped.One smallie hit the 3 times in the air before taking it.HAVE FUN

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    Water Temp: 67-69

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished the narrows from 6:30 - 4:00. Caught 40+ fish using senkos, cranks, and drop-shotting. A number of the fish caught had crawdad's still in their throats. The fish were very active. Caught fish all over down to 20 feet. My best day on this lake yet. Biggest fish was a 3lb smallie.
    City: Woodland

    Tips: It didn't seem to matter on worm color this day. But the bite was very subtle.

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    Water Temp: 64 early 71 lat

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Started in the narrows early caught a nice spot on my first cast on a roboworm 6" sculpin fished around big island and putah throughout the day my friend tryed various top water through out the day with limited success they would boil on it but would not take it. We caught four fish during the day on spinnerbaits. Our best success was on drop shot 6" roboworms in the back of coves and on points. We caught 28 total fish our best fish would have went two pounds very few dinks. Quality largemouth smallmouth & spots.

    Tips: It was a very light bite a lot of the time they would just pick up the worm and swim away with it. Saw a lot of fish in the 24' range but got most of our fish right off the shore. Overcast day light wind but for the most part quality fish and a good day on the water.

Wednesday, May 5th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 66-69

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: If my trip last Friday started out with a bang, this one yesterday started out with a whimper! I told my client to get to Markley Cove early and we were ready with cranks, ripbaits, and topwater. So, where were the bass and shad that were there on Friday? Gone, of course. What a difference a weekend makes! My client did hook a nice smallie on topwater, but missed it. We started split-shotting junebug and green craw worms and the bite slowly turned on. The first 3 were largemouth up to almost 2 pounds. We fished the narrows for awhile, most of the time on the east shoreline of the main body, and some around Big Island. We were targeting flats with small rock and a ledge nearby The ledge produced better fish if it had a shadow. We also found good quality fish already off-shore in about 25 feet of water. Our score card was something like: 10 LM, 14 SM, and 6 SB for a total of 30 bass. Our best five were better than I had expected at 10 lbs 2 oz. I tested the drop-shot bite and it was still good. I caught an 18 inch spawned-out smallie that weighed only 2-5 on a #031 Yamamoto Kut-Tail worm, drop-shotted in about 25 feet of water. I did catch a 4 inch bass which I told my client I caught on purpose so he wouldn't feel bad about his 5 inch bass, har! No, they wern't part of the 30!! After my client left, I took a nap and them sampled the evening bite and found it to be fine. I caught 12 - 3 on crankbaits, the rest on worms. I wanted to make a "full day" of it, so I tried night fishing, but it got too windy with the incoming cold front and the bite was slow. I did get a sample of what is to come at night when a 2 lb smallie crushed a 7 inch Power Worm. Was that fun after a day of finesse bites. Bring on night fishing - I'm ready!!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: In addition to lots of thrills for my client, this trip provided a new experience for me. I saw two big fish on a boulder in about 15 feet of water, assumed they were spawning and dropped a white jig to them. One of them bolted for the jig at full speed and inhaled it. I just sight-fished my first catfish - about 6 pounds!!!! I tried jigs since some smallies were spitting up craws. No luck. The bass were in great shape and full of fight - a great day!! We saw smallies crusing everywhere - that was neat!

Friday, April 30th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 65-67

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I had another great trip Friday at Berryessa with my first-ever mother-son (10 years old) combo. I think grandpa was supposed to come but bailed at the last moment. After launching at Markley around 7 am we found a huge school of the biggest shad I have ever seen at Berryessa - 3 inches plus. Bass were chasing them out of the water, boiling, etc. Wow, I was nervous and excited!! Since I didn't have time to teach the boy how to cast yet, I cast out his split-shot rig and showed him how to retrieve it. I quickly saw that mom was a pretty good angler. Within the first half hour they had 2 double hookups and landed them all. I was a busy net man! I had a chance to throw my Chug Bug topwater lure for a few casts to show them how that worked and I got a 2-9 largemouth, lost a 3+ smallie and another big one. In the first hour they landed about 10. After awhile I showed her (while the boy rested from all the action!) how to drop-shot when the fish moved deeper and we caught 4 doing that, using Yamamoto 031 Kut-Tail worms. We moved out of the cove into the narrows for the rest of the trip and caught another 10 for a total of 20 and about an 8 1/2 lb limit. Mom's biggest was a nice 2 1/4 lb smallie that had already spawned, darn! I showed the young man how to sight fish - we picked a small male on a nest - I pitched out the worm and let him work it. Lots of patience was required from both of us, but the grin on his face when he hoisted the 1 3/4 lb largemouth in the boat was ALL worth it. We put him back and they both saw the male right back on the nest in about a minute. Mom now has a new fishing partner! What a fun day!!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: The water is very clear now with a visability of around 15 feet. We could see fish everywhere, including some crusing 4 to 5 lb largemouth. I don't know if they were pre or post spawn. In addition to the topwater action, we used Camanche Jack and Berkley worms, in green pumpkin, junebug, early dawn, and watermelon. It is important now to look for shadows when the sun is high. There are lots of bass suspended now, and topwater can work all day, especially if it get cloudy later in the week.

Sunday, April 25th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 64

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished the East, Waggs Canyon and the North. All produce fish but water skiiers killed the action up in Waggs. Fish hitting on drop shot - white Kinami Kutail in the morning and robo worm in the late morning afternoon. Would not touch senko, crank or spinners. Most were male LMB with some smallies. All were same size - 1 1/2 lb. No size but saw plenty of LMB cruising the rocks. Would not take anything. Water too clear and shallow. Tough fishing from noon on with jet skiiers and water skiiers buzzing all over.
    City: SF

    Tips: Drop shot outside with light color in morning and darker colors in the pm. Most of the fish in 15' or deeper.

Sunday, April 18th, 2004

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I hit Berryessa on Sunday and found some decent actions. My buddy and I pulled in 8 all together. The only thing that really seemed to work was tube jigs. No luck on rattle traps, spinner baits or senkos. Working the jigs slow and close to the bottom worked the best. The fish were from 5 to 15 feet deep. The bites were fairly subtle - maybe because of the cold front. Anytime I felt something out of the ordinary, I set the hook. Sometimes I got lucky and hooked into a fish. I pulled in a couple trophy sticks too, though. Good luck!

Thursday, April 15th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 61-65

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Hopefully I will stay awake long enough to write this report! I just spent the past three days guiding Berryessa and each day was different. I will just make some observations that I found interesting. Tuesday was the first day of the cold front with very strong winds that were about as tricky as I'se ever seen in the narrows. I can live with that but I feel for my clients that are trying to learn certain techniques besides crankbaits. Same thing for yesterday - today was better. Tues we caught around 20 and the fish were active. Several were in the 1 1/2 to 2 1/4 pound range. One client was red hot and the other lost every fish he hooked (about 12). I don't know why. Yesterday - the second day of the cold front, we caught 25 with only 3 bass in the 2 pound range. Lots of dinks which I think is normal for the second day cold front period. Large fish arn't as active and the little ones know it! It's their turn to roam!! Today, because of certain circumstances, we were only able to fish about 5 hours and we caught 11, but some of them were like the ones Nacl got yesterday. We too found an area - a wall which produced a 2 1/4 and 2 1/2 lb spot for a client and I caught a 2-5 smallie - all in 15 minutes. Only 2 dinks today and a limit near 11 lbs. The sun was dimmed today because of thin cloud cover and the fish moved shallower for us. One of the guys today had never worm fished before and we had a lot of laughs as I tried to convince him that the underwater tree branches wern't making his rod jerk. I said "they really are fish"!! He preceeded to catch three smallies which really put up a fight! A happy camper he was!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: We caught a few ripping and one on topwater Tues morning. Didn't even try any reaction Wed and today. Most of the time we were split-shotting Berkley Pulse worms, Yamamoto Kut-tails, and
    Camanche Jack's morning dawn with chartreuse tail. The latter one was the best worm every day by far. I caught a few on Senkos yesterday and today threw the #240 mentioned in the previous report on wall and points - open water. That's how I got the good smallie today. I missed three more. For whatever reason, the fish have moved out of the backs of coves. The #131 Yamamoto grub was working well also, on a darthead. We got the biggest smallie, 2-2, on that grub Tues. No matter how you work them, the small worms are hard to beat right now. When full sun returns, look for those shadows. Remember, there are underwater shadows too. If you see an underwater bush, cast to the shady side of the bush. Hang on!!

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    Water Temp: 62-63

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Took out two great guys on a guide trip today. We started out on the point where I got a good limit yesterday. Caught keeper fish, but no quality fish. Couldn't get bit on the weightless Senko but we caught a lot of fish on dropshots between 20-25'. We caught one shallow fish on a Senko and missed a ripbait fish, otherwise, we couldn't find many active shallow fish. The dropshot bite produced fish all day long but you had to catch a lot of fish to find a few good ones. We also hit for the "cycle"...caught several largemouth, a lot of spots, a couple smallies and one good mule-ee.
    City: Fair Oaks

    Tips: Dropshot small plastics in white colors like 3 1/2" Yamamoto cuttail's in white colors or other shad colors like 240, 237, 238 and 239. Also, try setting your dropshot hook 6-8' (that's right "feet") up from the weight...we caught several suspended fish this way.

Wednesday, April 14th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 62-63

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished the river for two hours early with no bites. Managed a few small fish on the east flats. Didn't get any keepers until 1:00...after returning to the narrows. Then, it busted wide open! Caught an 11 pound limit in 38 minutes on smoke blue pearl Senkos fished weightless in 20+ feet of water. Limit consisted of 1 2-pound smallie, 3 2-pound spots and the biggest fish was a long, post spawn 3-pound spot. They all hit like freight trains and several headed straight for the surface where they jumped big time. Great fun!!!

    I also marked lots of suspended fish and caught a few of them.
    City: Fair Oaks

    Tips: I think B'ssa is well into its first post spawn period and all the fish I saw looked spawned out. A second spawn will probably occur during the next warm spell but for right now, all the better fish I found are back out on the main points.

Sunday, April 11th, 2004

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Hey B Davis...... Try fishing the points in the narrows or any point outside Markley, I have been doing well on split shotin' 4in Aaron's Magic or any worm in brownish color. Or if you want to make a run to the main body try rippin' the flats on the east bank, north east of Big Island, look for the trees that are about 50 yards off the bank. Good luck.
    City: Citrus Heights

Saturday, April 10th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 62

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Went out @ 6:30am for a few hours before work. Threw an AC Plug, no takers, started throwing a Lucky Craft Sammy, 5th cast yielded a 9.9lb Hawg. Short cast and 3 twitches later the fight was on. Beautiful fish, full of eggs and ready to spawn. There is nothing better than a beast hitting topwater first thing in the morning. Took some pics and released her back to her domain. Caught four more fish and headed home at 9:30. Happy Easter to everybody and god bless!
    City: Davis

    Tips: I love fishing!

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I am going to fish berryessa for the first time this next week. I am going to be launching at markley cove. Can anyone help me out with some tips on where and what to fish with.
    City: Chico

    Tips: Any advice would be great. Thanks

Friday, April 9th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 60-67

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I spent another beautiful day at Berryessa with a very special client. He was a person who sustained a very serious injury when he was young and as a result can't walk or move around in the boat very well. He has really not let his problems slow him down in the fishing world and I was privledged to get to know him and spend a fun day helping him catch lots of bass! The only disappointing thing about the day was the lack of topwater action in the early morning. He caught one on a crankbait on the first cast and I thought we were in business. Anyway, the spawn is on and we got onto some great largemouth, and about 8 smallmouth up to 2 lbs 3 oz. We only caught 2 spots - one at 2 pounds. We did some sight fishing for largemouth with white jigs and teased a few into biting. He spotted a good bass on a nest in about 8 feet of water. We could barely see it but he wanted me to show him how to get it to bite. Third try she nailed the jig and was the biggest of the day - a 3 1/4 lb largemouth. We also caught two spawned-out largies at 2 3/4 lbs each. The rest of the time we split-shotted baby brush hogs, lizards, and Berkley Pulse worms. I don't know how many bites we had, but we landed 27 with a limit finally over 13 pounds. It really was fun to see bass in shallow water everywhere. My client really enjoyed throwing his watermelon brush hog in front of a crusing bass and she turned around and ate it! She must have jumped over a foot out of the water. That was one of the large spawned-out females. I was surprised not to see any bass over 4 pounds. Maybe they are spawning deeper. We caught most of our fish from 5 to 15 feet. We expected to see a few big ones but didn't. And does that lake ever have carp - and GOLDFISH!!! I had heard about them but had never seen any. Two were paired up - I wonder if they spawn? Man, are they bright in the clear water - you can see them 20 yards away!!!!!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: The lake has really changed this past week. The water has really cleared up and has dropped a few feet. Pleasure boaters are out now for the Easter weekend, mudlines are forming, and summer won't be far off. Cover, shadows, and deep water access will become more important as post-spawn takes center-stage. We fished the main body all day.

Monday, April 5th, 2004

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    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Got on the water at6:45 fished until 12:45. caught 9 fish to 2.5lbs. got three on a norman deep little n crawdad crankbait and the other six on a 4.5 inch roboworm splitshotted.
    City: Elk Grove

    Tips: crankin in and around rocks and fished the plastics in 8-13 feet of water on long sloping points.

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    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Just want to let your club know that the Sierra Club is working with the Bureau of Reclamation to make all remote reaches (prime bass fishing spots) non-motorized zones. Lake Berryessa is set for some huge changes and the Sierra Club has gotten involved big time. They are pushing for all shoreline and all coves to be non-motorized zones. It seems that the Bureau and Napa County are listening to them. Please vist our website at www.lbvspt.com. Here is a link to the Sierra Clubs statements: http://www.redwood.sierraclub.org/napa/conversation/lakeberry/testimony_20040121.html
    City: Santa Rosa