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Saturday, March 21st, 2009

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    Water Temp: 53-58 degrees

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Went to Clear Lake on Fri night. Got to the water at dusk and the wind was blowing pretty good. Made for an interesting ride to say the least. Launched out of Red Bud and stayed south of Konocti the whole trip. Started fishing @ 8pm and found the bite to be pretty good. Picked up two fish within 5 min. of getting my line wet. Both fish I picked up on a Basstrix Spintrix in Hitch #2 w/ a 1/2 oz. Revenger head. Once it got really dark I got situated w/ my Black lights and started throwing Brush Hogs, Jigs, and a Chatter Bait later in the night. Fish seemed to be healthy. Nice football sized fish. The early bite was good till appx. 10:30 and didn't pick back up for me till around 12am. My better fish didn't come till after 2 am. I fished from a little after dusk til 5 am. Im sure I finished w/ 19 fish. Big fish of the night was 7lbs even maybe an oz over. (Caught on a Blk/Blue Chatter Bait close to 4:30am WOW) Best five appx 25.5-26lbs. Fishing is still good for me and will be heading back up to the lake on Wed. night pending the wind factor. HAHA!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: Pulled up on Lunker Larry @ 2am and watched him put on a show landing what seemed like a dozen fish but I think was 6-8. He seemed to be having a consistent night as well but like me hadn't landed any real quality yet. Funny story of the night was Larry and Chatting about how quiet the lake was of traffic and for the exception of the swirling wind, it was a beautiful night. Then a boat pulls up on us both within 20 yards and begins fishing. Im thinking to myself 200 miles of shoreline on this lake and the only 3 boats out here are within 30 yds of eachother. HAHA! You never know Marty of MP Night Fishing may have been somewhere out there so that assumption may be false. HAHA Anyhow get out there and get your lines wet fishing is still pretty good at night. I like the night time anyways this time of year because you have the whole lake to yourself except on Fri. that was the exception. One last thing, When you tighten your drag to break off a jighead stuck in the rocks don't forget to adjust your drag back after you retie and make the next cast. That stupid mistake cost me two good fish that strighted my hook out. One on a Brush Hog and one on a jig. Only problem w/ using heavy floresent superlines at night is they are hard to break when you get hung and can't get it out.

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    Water Temp: 54

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Went out yesterday with the new boat to get it in the water and try and catch a few fish. We hit the water at about 1030hrs. The water was white capped the entire time we were out there. (till approx 1530hrs) We threw everything from crankbaits (liped and lipless) to spinners to jigs and brush hogs with no luck. It was extremely windy and once the rain moved in we left. Hopefully well have better luck next time.
    City: Newman

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    Water Temp: 55-59

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: I did something different last night (this morning!) and fished from 11:30 pm to 5 am. After catching a few 2 pounders at Rattlesnake Island, I moved to the next spot uplake as the wind picked up. I tried to turn on my blacklight again but it quit! Don't know the problem yet but had to "fish by feel" in the dark of the moon - in now stiff wind! Naturally I missed more than my share but I did land 12. My bigger bass came about 4 am, but the biggest was only 5 1/4. I did have a nice limit "by feel" at 22 pounds! Luckily, my last few bigger bass hit a Piranha swim jig and I could feel them real good. They would just "mouth" a brush hog. Again, I fished rock only - rock flats and steep shoreline rocks. No fish deeper than 15-18 feet.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: Many, many clients and others have asked me about the wind patterns at Clear Lake - and they are interesting! Clear Lake is the only place in the world that the wind can blow all 4 direction inside of two minutes - and I was there - at Dollar Island!! I often joke with clients, telling them that Clear Lake is God's "practice wind tunnel." He tries out all the various wind patterns before sending them around the world! After mostly a calm lake since late Sept (except for winter storms), I have always felt that the weather pattern changes around the 15th to the 20th of March, as the pattern switches to the costal weather pattern of afternoon spring and summer winds which will often blow into the night. This mornings north wind was on schedule - the 20th! That pattern is what creates the summer costal fog patterns in the late afternoons. Anybody remember Candlestick Park summer night Giants games? Brrrr! While this pattern doesn't bother the Lakeport area fishing that much (it blows offshore), the rest of the lake can be very rough after 4 pm. During the spring and summer heat spells, the wind isn't so bad and often quits at dusk. When a summer cold front moves in and the temp drops 15-20 degrees, you can count on "rough seas" for a day or two. Beware - it is often fairly calm at blastoff (dawn) during these periods, but by 8 or 9 am, things will change in a hurry - with heavy winds coming from the north. As we get into Sept, the winds are less fierce and gradually mello out as Oct arrives. When are the most beautiful days in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and other coastal areas? You guessed it - Oct and Nov!

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 49.5-52

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: The previous post had a typo it was supposed to read "24 anglers for 7 limts" not 2 anglers for 7 limits - doh!
    City: Santa Rosa

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    Water Temp: 49.5-52

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Redwood Empire Bass Club had it's Spring tournament on Clearlake Saturday. 2 anglers for 7 limts and a total of 62 fish caught. First place Jon Adams had 5 fish for 24.77lbs and 2nd big fish @ 6.5lbs, 2nd place Jerod Adams had 5 fish for 21.31lbs, Steve Adams had 5 fish for 17.92lbs and big fish 7.26lbs, 4th place Paul Facio had 5 fish for 15.92lbs. A lot of fish were caught on cranks and jigs and drop shot in the South end. The wind made it difficult to fish a lot of spots but still a lot of great fish brought to the scales.
    City: Santa Rosa

    Tips: REBC's next tournament is at Lake Sonoma April 18th. Our next club meeting is on April 8th at 7PM at the Rohnert Park Community Center at the corner of Rohnert Park Expressway and Snyder Lane. If you want to get to be a better Bass'er and fish with some great guys whether boater or non-boater come to our next meeting and sign up for the April tournament. We wil have a guest speaker at this meeting and we have a raffle every month. For more info, check out our club web site at www.rebc.net

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 51

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Fished for five hours this afternoon and had a good time.concentrated on deep rock piles in the south end using the shaky-senco.Stuck around 20 with a 4 lb kicker and a few nice 3,s.Couldent get em to bite the cranks or swims today.
    City: lower lake

    Tips: Use smelly jelly or other sents on your plastics,it makes a big difference.

Monday, March 9th, 2009

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    Water Temp: ?

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: What can a 27 degree morning at Clear Lake do for you - not much!! I notice we were the first to launch at the Oaks - smart people slept in! Actually it didn't matter as I was helping a client learn off-shore structure and new areas. We had a great time once we thawed out! We ran to several spots for our 5 hr trip - looking, metering, and doing some fishing. The bite was very slow in the morning which was no surprise. He did catch two nice bass and I got one about 3 1/2 lbs. Several bass would pick up our baits - bite the tails, and stuff like that. Maybe the afternoon was better - it usually is after a morning chill like that. All our fish and hits were on jigs in water over 10 feet deep.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: The bite will certainly improve when this very cold March weather moves out. The jig bite remains pretty good. I did try spinnerbaits but got no action. We basically fished rock piles and rock flats - some around dock pilings. BRRRR!

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 52-60

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Went out with John to watch his son fish the college fishing FLW tournament. Great event. Lot of wind Friday and only got 3 fish to 3.6#. One on a rock pile drop shot, one on a deep crank bite, John got one on a shaky head. Dock talk was all fish on plastic and deep. Didn't fish shallow but should have. Fished bottom walker, paddle tale, cranks and others but no real luck. None of the favorite spots producet. Lots of pressure from the FLW may have had an impact. John's son (Jimmy Sweeney from Chico State)told us that the fish were moving up near rattlesnake. After the weigh in we took a quick run down there. Got 4 in about an hour and lost 4 more, lots of fun. Very soft bite fish seemed to be staging. If the weather holds it should be exciting soon! Fish came on Helix and Drop shot in less than 10 feet.
    City: Pacifica

    Tips: Test the shallows or find your favorite rock pile.

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 48-53

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Got out at 530 and went to docks by tule point, started throwin cranks and hooked a decent 2lb. After a couple hours went to the jig and started pitchin around docks, natta .In between docks i crawled the jig around the boat ramps and started gettn bit. Couple of 3s and a 4. Fun day of fishn, but no clear lake monsters

    Tips: dont just fish da docks, ramps hold fish too

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 45-51

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Got a day to fish solo Sat "Very Rare" main reason to get on the water was to tune up the 175 Merc, she's running "OK" Any to the report, finally started fishing about 10:45, I fished south of Red Bud real shallow 2-6 with rip bait stacey 90, 6" baitsmith and my favorite jig, with no takers, decided to drag a jig on the flats close by no takers so off to deaper clearer water with rocks, I finally got 3 fish on my LV 500 and 1 fish on a crank bait, I tried the jig & drop shot in the same area where I got the reaction fish with not even a touch, for me it was a reaction bite. Spoke to about 4 different guys pre-fishing for the Stren coming up, nice guys all of the ones I spoke to, some were not doing as well as me and some a little better.
    City: San Joser

    Tips: Some guys shared a little of what they were doing and some did not and you can understand that but like I stated above for me it was a reaction bite and I had to cover a ton of water for the 4 I did get.
    I did see a lot of guys fishing real shallow around Red Bud, I do not know if they were getting anything but there were about 4 guys in 2 feet of water fishing the bank. Good luck to all the guys fishing the Stren, it looks like rain rain rain, bring your rain gear at least you will stay dry when you spear one of those rollers!!!

Friday, February 27th, 2009

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    Water Temp: N/A

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Hey Kiko the sneako how can you fish lake castias and clear lake in the same day? Maybe you have been hitting the crack pipe to much? or your selling lures for spro? quit putting bullshit reports her and get a life and let the real fisherman make the reports
    City: sacramento

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 48.5

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Late report...got in a 1 1/12 hour break and snuck up to the narrows for a little fun. Two fish, one 2.13, nicer one 4.4. Little guy on a blk/blue rvng jig with blk/blue hula grub trailer, second bigger fish on shakey head with 6" black curly tail worm. Missed a couple of light bites. Both fish back to back around 9:30 AM in about 20-23' on rock ledges.
    City: Clear Lake Park

    Tips: Pressure bite, hard to feel the take. Just a little difference in line tension=set the hook!

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    Water Temp: 46-49

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: My least favorite days to guide are Mondays, especially following 2 weekend tournaments, and all-day rain. I got to do both yesterday!! I felt the second day of rain had slowed the bite a little, plus fishing pressure. Both fellows were fishing Clear Lake for the first time and again, one of the guys handled his CL initiation very well, landing his first bass that looked about 5 lbs but wasn't quite that heavy. He did an excellent job of fighting the fish - keeping the rod tip down. He was using his own jig with a Zoom trailer. He also landed a 2 1/2 and missed several. His partner missed 2 or 3 but didn't boat any. I tried some different jigs with not much success, boating only 1 close to 3 lbs. The idea of course was to show them how to approach the lake and cover some different types of structure. Besides - love that rain beating on my face!! Forgot my Fish Hedz!! We found most of our bites to be around the 12 to 20 foot range - all on submerged rock drop-offs.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: It is hard to evaluate the lake with conditions we faced yesterday. I felt the mid and south end of the lake saw the water temp drop a degree or so. I thought the warm rain would raise it. Maybe it did up north. I also tried some small Robo and Power worms - no bites! The jig rules - and probably some swimbaits too!!

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

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    Water Temp: 50

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Went out for some clear lake giants so i went to my spro bbz fast sink and went to the south side of the lake. Fished the points letting the bait hit the bottom and it produced. caught a 4 pounder. later in the day about 10 am caught a 6 pounder. about eleven oclock. caught a ten pounder on a rock point. best fish this year!!! than at about twelve went back to the spot where i caught the 4 pounder because it normally holds a lot of fish and hooked up and landed at twelve and a half pound giant!!!!!!
    City: B hood

    Tips: throw swimbaits on rock points. big rocks preferably

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    Water Temp: 47-50

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Mike Sperbeck and I decided to check out the afternoon bite Fri afternoon and, of course, had to do some night fishing. The jig bite was good in the afternoon with the "Hemphill" special - brown/orange Rodstrainer jig with #180 Yamamoto grub. My first bass was 4 lbs 10 oz. Lost the next big one and then landed another 4 lber. Mike couldn't get bit on brown/purple He later switched to brown/orange and caught 3 in a row. Eight bass before dark averaging 3 3/4 lbs. After dark I caught a near 4 and a 5-5 on Brush hogs which must have made Mike mad!! He pitched into a dock corner with a weed mat - dragged the brush hog over the weeds and when it sank - someone nailed it! His "momma" weighed 8 lbs 11 oz. She was happy to be released and he was happy with his biggest of the year! We fished until midnight, catching 10 night bass to go with our 8 day bass. Mike "allowed me" to catch a 7-1 on a D&M swim jig w/Yamamoto trailer. Our goal was a 30 lb limit and we did it - 30 lbs 3 oz!! Night wasn't too cold, either.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: With the rising water, warmer days, and higher sun, the bass seem to be moving up a bit. The water temp is still about the same - lots of snow on the mountains. The jig bite seems to be improving, along with small worms. A decent rip bite should be just around the corner - maybe after this upcoming warmer rain. Don't be afraid to try different color combinations - expecially with your jigs.

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 52

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: caught my fish on swim baits 5" thanks rick at rickstopshelftackle.what a bait

    Tips: throw em slow and deep

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

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    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Last night I attended a seminar hosted by Larry Hemphill at Fisherman's Warehouse in Sacramento. The topic of conversation was strictly Jig fishing. I've always known that jigs can catch big Bass but rarely use them. Larry proved jig fishing can be deadly for monster Bass! For those of you who don't throw jigs very often and would like to but lack confidence, you really should get in contact with Larry! He's a very nice man and has too much jig fishing experience for any of us not to pick his brain.
    ps- Thanks again Larry for the free tackle and educational seminar! I needed a little pick me up in the jiggin arena!
    City: Sacramento

    Tips: If you want to learn the ins and outs of jig fishin at Clearlake or several other major lakes? Contact Larry! He posts here often!

Friday, February 6th, 2009

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    Water Temp: 47-50

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Tues evening I was able to guide the father of one of my previous clients. Great guy and good fisherman! He wanted to try night fishing for the first time - in the winter?!! He did well considering the bite was fair. He did land a limit with his last one being 4 1/2 lbs. He missed several fish, as did I. The bass just wern't taking the baits like normal. I landed 5 or 6 also - one did go 6 1/2 lbs. A couple of monster bites for us, but they didn't see the net. Wed night I fished with my hometown buddy, Mike Sperbeck. We did well but struggled to land any good fish - he caught the biggest at 4 lbs 6 oz. He was fishing the back of my boat and landed 15, I, only 5! Payback for our previous trip!!! My client caught all of his on a sweet beaver and most of mine were on a D&M spin jig. Wed night Mike and I found the jig to be the bait of choice. I think the Rodstrainer jig is all he threw. I showed him a subtle ledge that I have been fishing recently and he stuck 5 the half hour before dark - all 3 to 4 lbs. I got one bite! He had the magic color - purple/brown. My client and I had a limit of nearly 21 lbs while Mike and I could only manage an 18 1/4 lb limit.
    City: Yuba city

    Tips: Once in awhile folks say that the person in front of the boat catches most of the fish. That may be true if they are fishing down a bank. Not so in open water! It's just who is doing the right technique with the right bait. Mike cleaned my clock in back of the boat! It was interesting that a few areas that were good Tues evening had no takers on Wed evening! It was finally cloudy and warmer Wed evening but it didn't seem to help the bite at all. I was surprised. I talked to another friend who was out Wed night and he reported slow fishing also - until after 1 am where he did find some quality bass. In winter is it a good idea to keep moving!

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

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    Water Temp: 48

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Finally found a good rip bite this weakend!Fished for three hours on saturday and and four on sunday for a total of 25 nice keeper rip fish to 4 lbs.It seems like every fish in the lake has migrated to Jago,it dosent take a brain surgen to throw live bait and boat 30 fish in a day.I myself would rather provoke strikes than wait for them, but thats just me.
    City: lower lake

    Tips: The fish get fired up right before dark.I stuck a dozen withen 15 minutes on saturday.Fun!

Saturday, January 31st, 2009

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    Water Temp: 47

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Had an awesome day on the water with a GREAT guide! 20 + fish!(Bob 707 994-6427)he will put you on the fish, great rates too!
    City: napa

    Tips: call Bob (707) 994-6427!