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Thursday, January 6th, 2005

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    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Redwood Empire Bass Club next team tournament is at Clear Lake on January 14th. With both Berryessa and Sonoma blown out because of the storms, Clear Lake is the place to be. Our next meeting is next Wednesday January 11th at 7p.m. at the Rohnert Park Community Center at the corner of Rohnert Park Expressway and Snyder Lane. We welcome both boaters and non boaters to fish our tournaments with us. Click on clubs above or call me at 707.758.5762 for more info.
    City: Santa Rosa

Wednesday, January 5th, 2005

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    Water Temp: About 50 degree

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: I caught zero bass in the Rattlesnake Island arm and around the mouth of Rodman Slough. However, I met two gentlemen at the Clearlake Oaks ramp who caught many very impressive crappies near Shag Rock. Apparently the big crappies are biting well even as the bass apparently aren't.
    City: Santa Rosa

    Tips: Forget the bass for awhile and fish for crappies in 30' of water near the center of the lake. I was told that black/chartreuse jigs were working the best.

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    Water Temp: n/a

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Mendo Bassers in Ukiah is currently looking for new members. We are a small club that want to expand. We fish once every month mosly on Clear Lake (8 times this year) with a few at Mendocino (2), Pilsbury, and Sonoma. If interested or want more info, e-mail me your contact info. You are not required to attend meetings to be eligible to fish so out of town members are welcome.
    City: Ukiah

    Tips: This is a low cost/low payout club ($10.00 entry fee each person plus gas money if non-boater). We are about learning or teaching depending on your level of knowledge. We welcome all fisherman (or fisherwomen for that matter) who share our passion for bass fishing and like to get out of the house at least once a month and rip some lips...:)

Friday, December 31st, 2004

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    Water Temp: 48

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: A frind and I saw a break in the weather here and dicided to try clear lake, we were in the water about 1115 and fished the north bank along hwy 20. We started getting bite as soon as we started, some of the smaler ones were not holding on very long and we missed a lot of them. The larger fish were biting real light but held on long enough to catch them. Yhe smaler ones were 11-13 in. ,the larger fish were 2-4#. most of the fish were in 2-8 ft. of water taken on baby brush hogs in sour grape and watermelon, took a couple drop shoting under docks.Good day for this time of year some rain and a little rain, beats staying at home watching the tube, good luck and good fishing
    City: orland

Wednesday, December 29th, 2004

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    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: WOOHOO, cant believe it! went out thismorning at 6:00am. Casted out a nightcrawler under a bobber for bass and first thing it hits the water BOOM!! it goes under it was a 30 minute fight on 6 pound test but got it in.. you wont believe what it was!!!!! A 52inch STURGEON!!! i didnt know clear lake had sturgeon. Took pics of it and released it!
    City: Nice

    Tips: Watch out for that sturgie hes still in clear lake waters!

Monday, December 27th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 48

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Caught 17 today. 15 on a crankbait. 1 on a jig and 1 on a drop shot. Biggest 3 1/2 lbs. If you are looking for just numbers go shallow with a stick bait and go slow in the grass.

Thursday, December 2nd, 2004

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    Water Temp: 54

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: I went to Clear Lake yesterday late afternoon and after dark until about 2 am. The weather was more interesting than the fishing - really amazing! I only got to fish about 1/2 hour before dark and started with a near 5 pounder and a 4 pounder on a brown/orange Weapon jig with a Mad Man craw trailer. The ride to Konocti for a burger was very chilly. I wasn't worried, 'cause I had come prepared for the worst!! After dark, an east wind came up and the temp warmed up!!! I don't have a clue where the warmer air came from, but when I left at 2:15 am the air temp was 46. I thought it would be 26! When I got back to Yuba City it was 29! Cooch said they caught 100 plus fish on the previous report. Well, that would explain why the night fishing just isn't what it used to be. The bass are just more active during the day right now. I only caught 7 more - all 2 to 3 1/4 lbs. A rare windy night in December made fishing difficult and I missed a lot of the soft bites. The wind, interestingly enought, died for about an hour at midnight - the carp started rolling - and I had the most bites during that period. Up came the wind again and down went the carp and the bass bite. I am hoping when the water temp drops even more, the night bite will get better. I could see lots of fish - some of which had to be bass - on the meter - right on the bottom, but they just wouldn't bite. A 16+ pound limit is ok, but I hope to have a better report next time!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: The black/chartreuse Weapon jig worked well after dark. I used some large worms with no results. When I switched to a black/red brush hog, I got a lot more bites. They really like that bait during the cold water months. I caught most of my fish in 5 to 20 feet of water. I could not get the 30+ foot deep fish to go. I fished mostly rock ledges in the main body. I did not fish the Rattlesnake Island area - lots of wind.

Friday, November 26th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 54

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished Friday with Rob and Mike from San Jose, morning started off very cool and Foggy out of the Oaks. Tossed cranks, rattletraps and jerkbaits the first two hours with no success, Went up around Anderson and began crankin a Carolina rigged Zoom Lizard, over the next two hours we caught 20-30 fish, all fat chunks in the 2-2.5 pound range. Went to go fish some deeper stuff at Shag, but 9 crappie boats were camped there having a ball. Ran straight accros the Narrows to the deep docks to do some spoonin', fish were there with all the shad, just couldn't git em ta eat and metal offerings. Caught two 3 ponders on the Lizard, we then began chucking Jumbo Minnows on a splitshot and all hell broke loose. Next 2.5 hours we catch another 30-40 fish from 3-6 pounds, eight of them over 5 pounds. Had ta laugh at my clients who originally frowned upon using live bait, but once they saw the difference in the quality of fish, and we wuz just using a splitshot rig, they are now converted. Running out of minners we moved around towards hiway 20 and began jerking LC StayCees (aurora black) and over the next two hours caught another 20-25 fish, most of these all in that 2.5 pound range. At 3:30 as we were heading back to the ramp, I sw a bunch of greebes and gulls poundin the shad, let's go guys, time ta live bait fish again. Pulling up I could see on my graph we wuz in 30 feet of water, the shad were so thick at times, my meter would only read 2 feet. I grabbed my spoon and began snagging shad and tossing em on the deck, we then moved up to a point at the edge of a ledge were the shad balls stopped and began drop shotting, Bingo! Bass bonanza again, we catch another 15-20 fish befor we head back in,, again, these were all 3-4 pound fish.
    City: Oakley

    Tips: Fish are schooled up, both deep and shallow, find the shad, you'll find the fish. Catching the better fish with any consistancy will be a challenge, unless ya use live bait. It's Minner TIME!

Saturday, October 30th, 2004

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    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Good fishing was found in the Oaks area. Fished from 1 pm till about 7pm. Caught around 30 fish all were about 1-2lb class. Fished slow. Most fish caught on drop shot rigs. Notable catches were caught sunday morning. About a dozen caught over 2 lbs.
    City: Bay Area

    Tips: Anything purple or brown. Big baits catch bigger fish.

Thursday, October 28th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 58-63

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Well we spent 3 days pounding different areas of the lake (mostly North) and allthough the numbers werent there the quality was excellent with one around 6.5 and another @ 5 and several around 3. We caught some dinks but the majority were the healthier,fatter fish. I was lucky enough to enjoy the company of good frineds and family,a new boat,beautiful Clear Lake Bass and the nicest weather you could ask for in October.Those of you that were nice enough to email me with tips and suggestions Thanks and I will return the favor whenever I can. Tight Lines!!!
    City: Chowchilla

    Tips: Dont give up....one day we fished from 8am to 4pm without a fish then boom we found a pattern and fish-we probably had 17+ with our best 5 in the next 2 hrs!

Sunday, October 24th, 2004

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    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: No buddy's fished up here in a week? Where's all the reports???C'mon guys need help-heading up this next week and wanna catch 'em! Thanks in advance-tight lines!!!
    Scott
    City: chowchilla

    Tips: Post your reports like everybody else does so we can use YOUR info to help us like yOU use ours to help you.Thanks!

Sunday, October 17th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 68

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: I guided Thurs, Fri, and Sat - "teach the lake" trips, mostly in the south end. Each day was similar - except the wind on Sat - wow! Each trip produced 17 to 19 tournament keepers up to 3 1/2 pounds, plus numerous smaller bass that are getting in their final feed while the bigger fish are offshore. Fri produced larger fish including two that my client broke off because of his line being too light in test. One can use a minimum of 12 pound test in the dirty water. I, too, had problems. I was using a Strike Pro Bad Boy 80 crank (lemon-lime) with good success Thurs. Fri. morning I had a big bass just attack it on a rock ledge and snap my new 12 lb test and fresh knot! I didn't even have a chance to react - just snapped it!! I saw the fish briefly under the surface and she was big. Of course, that was the only Bad Boy I had. The bass seemed to love that bait. Might be time to chanbe to 14# test! We used Senkos, spinnerbaits (my client Sat was a pro at fishing them!), crankbaits, Power Worms and Dead Ringer worms. Could not get a jig bite to go, but the Yamamoto Kreature bait was again a winner. We fished tule-rock areas with good success. We found shallow and deep bass, but the shallow ones seemed more active.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: Since these fellows are fishing upcoming tournaments, I won't be specific about how, what, and where. I will say that experimenting with different colors will pay off. We did find a "hot" color with the Kreatures - definately. But that has to remain a secret for my clients. It looks like an earlier fall than previous years. If heavy rain happens at the lake Tuesday, it could help the bite for larger bass and bring them all a little shallower. I expect the water to cool off by several degrees in the next few days. One may need to slow their presentations a bit. Who Knows?!

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    Water Temp: WARM NO TEMP GA

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: My Brother Benny and Sister-in-Law Sandi came down from Oregon to fish and I dropped the boat in at Red Bud and fished the south end. Fished deeper docks and off shore reefs with drop shot and senkos, only 2 fish on senkos and 38 fish on drop shot. I cought the numbers in am, Sandi caught the larger fish in the am and than my brother schooled us in the evening catching 8 fish to my 2 fish, calm in AM windy in PM that was Saturday. Sunday we caught about 15-20 fish on same set up. fish were 1/2 to 2 lbs with mostly about 1 1/4 lb.
    City: SAN JOSE

    Tips: Don't fish dock that do not have deeper water close by like the one at Red Bud, you will catch fish there but not as many as you would docks with deeper water close by and rocks, for example if you fish Red Bud pier the closest deep water is about 1/4 mile, this is great in the spring but not in the summer fall or winter, yes you will catch some but not numbers and yes I have caught 5 lb fish in 5 inches of water but again if you want numbers fish deep water close by. Dead stick that worm with drop shot, lift rod and lower rod and don't move the weight, sometimes don't even move the worm, a lot of bites came with out even moving the worm like live bait.
    Purple worms 4 inch strait and 4 inch curly tail.

Saturday, October 16th, 2004

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    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: A cold front was moving in, but the fishing was still pretty good. Fished Soda Bay and had a few fish on crankbaits pretty deep, and dropshot and senkos, pretty shallow. Couldnt find a pattern.

    FIshed Konocti. Was pretty calm in the morning with some rain. THen the wind started up and it was hell from then on. In the end, i caught about 20 fish dropshotting docks and rocks. Only one of those over 12 inches. Broke off a nice fish, prolly around five pounds right in the konocti marina.

    I think i saw u out there Cooch, but didnt have a chance to say hi.
    City: Clear Lake

    Tips: Reaction bite in the morning.
    In the afternoon, drag plastics, dropshot, or throw senkos. Something slow.

Tuesday, October 12th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 68-72

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: had some major boat trouble...but my buddy let us use his boat for the day...life saver

    so we didn't get going until 930am fished the south end south of konocti..caught a lot of fish on drop shot and grubs..nothing too big. 4lbs with most fish around 14 inches
    a lot of fun but couldn't find any quality fish..suprising since we were catching most fish in 12-15 feet of water
    City: Los Altos

    Tips: once the water cools the fishing should pick up big time

Monday, October 11th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 68

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: A good day, not a great day. Me and my partner fished mostly the south end. We caught a dozen fish, the largest was 6.7 on the digital. A couple of three pounders, but we expected more after reading the latest reports. Fish are extremly shallow, in fact almost right on the shore. I caught the 6 on a Cordell Spot. Pattern must be changing with the weather.
    City: San Leandro

    Tips: Clear Lake is one of the few places you can go and hook a 7 pounder and still be a little disapointed. Most of the fish we caught were in 2 feet of water.

Sunday, October 10th, 2004

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    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Fished the ClearLake BASSMASTERS Bass Derby yesterday (Sat, 10-09-04)and the wind kicked our butts. It was cold a windy but we had a really good time. First I would like to thank the ClearLake Bassmasters for hosting such a teriffic event. Front start to finish the event went very smoothly, truely professional-Great Job guys, everyone involved deserves a special THANK YOU.
    Secondly I would like to send my thanks out to my partner, Len Kovats. Thanks Len for such a wonderful experience and the sacrifices you made to keep us on the fish in those horrible conditions. It really takes some extreme conditions to test a boater and his boat-and let me tell all of you that the saying is true, "Nothing Rides Like a CHAMPION!" that was more than obviously clear yesterday. That boat handled the wind and water wonderfully. The fishing deck stayed stable even in those conditions. But the ride back to weigh in truely separated the men from the boys. We were in the rattlesnake island area and had twenty min. to get back to Libray Park, no problem on a nice day but when the wind is 20 mph+ and 2-3 ft. swells it is a ball bustin' ride. That ol' girl (The Champion Boat) had her work cut out for her, but she came through, we made it with 3 min. to spare!! A true Champion! Great Job Len, that ride back was not for your novice captains, I was scared $#@*less but survived to write this post.

    The fishing was good. We had 47 teams show up to fish and we all caught 193 bass (wich 193 were released alive and healthy)good job to all anglers and the release boat staff, job wll done! The average weight for the tournament went about 2.5 #'s, the big fish was a beast, 9.5 #'s caught by my fellow Yuba City Club memeber, Jackie Cox-way to go Jackie!! Len and I finished in second place, with a weight of 18.6 #'s, big fish was 7.5 caught on a Margarita Mutilator, dropped shotted around hydrilla and docks. We caught all our fish drop shotting and crankin' red craw, shad patterns and a parrot/ fire tiger colors. It was a rough day but most anglers seemed to catch fish, thanks again to the ClearLake Bassmasters for such a wonderful tournament!
    City: YUBA CITY

    Tips: We fished wind blown points and deep docks that offered at least one additional form of cover,rock or weeds ect... We fished deep diving cranks (above) and bounced them off the bottom from 5 ft to 12 ft. The docks we hit with a drop shot, rigged mostly with MM and Aaron's magic, not shaking it too much, one or two pumps then let it sit for awhile then repeat. Good Luck, hopefully the wind goes and lays down for awhile!

Saturday, October 9th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 67

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Managed to talk the wife into a fishing vacation at Clear Lake. We rented a little cottage in Lakeport. My boat doesn't really have enough range to cover water, so I stayed in the north end. Fished as far south as the Lakeside State Park and along the northern edge by Highway 20 from Rodman to the Narrows. Weather was clear and calm in the mid 80's from Tues-Thurs, but it got cold and windy on Friday and Saturday. The bite was great early in the week and midweek, seemed to turn off when the weather changed. Just fished the mornings from sunrise to about noon - averaged about 20 fish a day, best limit on Tues went to 15lbs. Otherwise, it was probably around 10lbs a day except for Saturday where all I could manage were a few small keepers.
    City: Newark

    Tips: Flipping green pumpkin senkos into shallow tulles accounted for over 50% of my fish. Had a good gold/gold white/chart spinnerbait bite in front of tulle lines that went on and off throughout the week. Also had luck with texas-rigged 6" worms under shady docks tight to shallow pilings.

Friday, October 8th, 2004

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    Water Temp: 71

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: I guided a fellow in his boat Thursday, showing him how to fish Clear Lake in the fall. It was a nice day and the fishing was fair. Since the lake was calm, the crank bite wasn't good for us. We had several short worm strikes for some reason, most of the day. The worm bite still worked however, again, topped by the red shad Dead Ringer. The last spot I showed him, a little known ledge down south, produced one bite, but she was almost 4 1/2 lbs. The red shad worm did the trick. We fished most of the time, but did a lot of looking and running around. We caught around 12 or 13 bass for a limit near 14 pounds.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: My clients and I are having more success Carolina-rigging the larger worms rather than Texas rigging. They are a little harder to cast in the wind, but the bass seem to like the worm off the bottom a bit. We threw spinnerbaits a lot but don't think we got a single bass on one. I got out a Senko for the first time in awhile and, fishing them in shade pockets on Henderson Point, caught 2 and missed a good one. My client is a good fisherman and did well. I know he now understands the importance of his meter during the fall and winter season at Clear Lake!

Monday, October 4th, 2004

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    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: Fishing was outstanding. Hooked up with some real nice fish in Jago bay. Saturday was a pain cause of the Anglers choice TOC. Boats were everywhere. It was unreal. Dropshotting,jigs and buzzbaits were all we used. I stuck an 8 on sun night off a buzzbait. Fished a hundred yard stretch and caught an 8, a 6, two 3lbers in fifteen minutes. Every fish off the buzzbait were right off of peoples boat launches. Fishing this weekend was unreal.

    Tips: Morning and evening find peoples boat launches and throw buzz baits over them. Good luck.