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Oroville Lake and Reports

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Saturday, June 11th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 68 to 69

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Two of us fished from 9:30 to dark. We caught a total of 35 fish. The largest was a 2.6lb spot. Spinner bait accounted for 8 bass and the rest were on senko's.We fished the main body and the middle fork.
    City: Rough and Ready

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

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    Water Temp: No sure, didn't

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: My son and I fished the Thursday nite tournament out of Lime Saddle and spent most of our time up near Berry Creek. The resavoir is all but full as mentioned in earlier reports and there is a good bit of debris most everywhere. We caught probably 25 fish mostly on worms with the longest 16". It took 17.5 to win the money. Should mention here that most of the brush hanging over or in the water is poisen oak so if you put a bait in it and then touch the bait or the line you could get a reaction from it. I know I'm extremely allergic so I have to be aware. We had no wind so I shook the bait pretty good to get my fish. We had a couple on jigs.
    City: Paradise

    Tips: I think you could get bit most anywhere but pinpointing the location of the better fish will be the challenge. There are some fish in the running water and around the points but everything looks good right now. We used Reaction Innovation worms in the Juicy color on dart heads and brown/purple jigs. I caught twice as many as my son using eighth ounce compared to the quarter ounce he was using so the speed of the fall of the bait might have had something to do with it.

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 61-67

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: What is it with the sun today? Practically blinded us today - and probably the bass!! I had another nice trip today with 2 anglers new to bass fishing. I expected the bite to be slower today with bright skies and calm water this morning. Topwater was dead but the Senko and worm bite was a good as ever. One of the clients did well landing 10, but really had trouble hooking them. I'll bet he missed 30+. The other fellow struggled some but did land several - and a nice salmon. I sampled many colors of Robo worms today and found oxblood to be a favorite. We managed 3 over the slot again - one nice one pushing 2 3/4 lbs.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: We fished the middle fork again and stuck with the numerous tree shadows available all day because of the high water (97% full)! The fish are starting to hang on walls with steep rock and overhanging trees. Actually, this afternoon we were hooking fish in the top 10 feet again when the breeze came up. The quality bass were still 20+ feet deep.

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 64-66

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Can't believe I'm saying this, but I was able to complete 2 guide trips before the winter, err, summer storm hit! Weather went from post-front to clear on Thurs and clear to pre-front on Friday. Wow!! Fishing was excellent both days with a father-son team catching most of our 35+ bass on Thurs - including 5 over the slot and dad's near 19 inch spot! Most of their bass were caught on 6" Robo worms in green craw and junebug colors. Friday was new experience for me as I guided 2 sets of father-son pairs (all adults), and the fishing techniques were new for me also. They came from all over the country for a fishing reunion - with nightcrawlers!!! That's right! I had nightcrawlers wiggling all over my new carpet on my new Z521!! Actually, that's not true -they were very careful and it was a hoot for me to watch! One of the dads had a 40 year old fly rod break on a big spotted bass as he was dragging the crawler. We saw the fish - she was big. After 30 years of guiding I thought I had seen it all - this was a new territory for me. I did make 2 casts with a Robo PLASTIC worm and caught a nice spot - so as not to defame the reputation of my Ranger, har!! "LUNKERS LOVE NIGHTCRAWLERS" was a famous book that I got to see first-hand. They finally ran out of their 15(?) boxes of crawlers about the time to go home. They caught around 50 or so bass with 3 "overs". I spend the day amazed and getting to know my new 101 Minn Kota Fortrex which moved us around very well.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: I was most concerned about the number of fish that might be harmed by using live bait. I was amazed that the guys were very quick on the hookset and only gut hooked about 5 of the bass. And the hook that remained in their gullet was a very small one. I fished the middle fork both days - finding fish very shallow and active about 10 am to 1 pm. When the sun came out, everything died. Fri morning it was clear and the bite was pretty good but seemed to slow after 11 am when it clouded up. Weird. Most bass were on points and clay/rock gentle slope banks. Thurday I had the guys fishing willows too - with good results. Watch for wood, but I found the lake to be amazingly clear of debris.

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

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    Water Temp: 59-61

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished South Fork. Caught most of our fish near rock in less then 20 feet of water on spinnerbaits. Tried plastics but spinnerbait with chartreuse and white or blue and white coloring worked best. Didnt have much success in the willows. Caught around 30 for the day. My brother caught about a 2.5 lb red eye bass.
    City: sacramento

    Tips: Fish wind blown points and coves. try to find some larger rocks in the coves and have some fun!

Sunday, May 29th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 65

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Took the boy up the 29th and 30th. Sunday the weather was beautiful with light winds. Lake is prolly 6ft from full pool. Stayed in Potters and North Fork all day catching 1/8oz darthead/4" worm fish all day. Color didn't matter. Most fish were caught in the 10-15ft range. We caught around 30 fish (lost count)with nearly half in the slot and 2 over. Overall weight was around 13lbs.

    Monday was alot windier. Caught 4 keeper spook fish early in Nork Fork. After sun came up, moved to Middle Fork and finished the day in South Fork. Had to switch to 1/4oz darthead due to the wind. Again, color didn't matter. Numbers went down a bit but quality stayed up. Had around 14lbs with two 3 lber's. Don't pass up the most outboard bridge pilings. Good fish holding there.

    Overall it was a great trip with my son. We had a blast catching fish after fish. The smile on his face after each fish he caught will be forever etched in my brain. Priceless!
    City: Brentwood

    Tips: Spent most time in North Fork. 1/8oz darthead with 4" worm in your favorite color shallow should work.

Friday, May 27th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 62-64

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: on at 6:30. slow crank bite. only 10 in 1st 3 hours on main body. went to north arm and swithed off between crankin and texas rig robo in light oxblood. consistant for 3 hours then swithed to spinnerbait at 2pm and it was on. fished shallow and fast for 4 hours for 50+. finished off the day with 20 crankbait fish. Been every wknd for a month and had a reaction bite every time. stay with cranks & spinnerbaits and you will be rewarded.
    City: Brentwood

    Tips: a lot of tree needles & leafs in the water made it tough on main lake. Use compact spinnerbait. Cranked with normans deep lil n & middle lil n. sour grape. speed trap in chrome/ black. They will set up shallow to ambush at some point during the day. Keep movin and you will find them. Everything shallow for me

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    Water Temp: 62-65

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: WOW! I heard about big # days so I made my first trip.. Days one started good with 18 by 0930, then died off with the wind till about 3 pm.. Day 1 total= 49.Small mouths were sitting off shore about 30 feet and spots/blacks a little more shallow..Day two started with a little rain and chilly. a little slow in the first two hours but then it picked up.. picked ALOT of fish 20 feet from shore and on the bottom dragging a variety of grubs and plastic worms.. 13 1/2 hours on the lake and the bite was steady.. day 2 total=101 fish between two of us!!..
    City: Atwater

    Tips: Slow dragging bottom retries worked well in the morning, weightless wackky rig in the afternoon/evening was working too. Not much action on cranks or spinners.. Good luck!@

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 61 - 64

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Started with top water at 6am. No luck. switch to plastics and crankbait at 7 am and it was on.40 fish between me and my partner. Fish were around 1.5 lbs each nothing big but lots of fun. Lake was full and only $13 to launch at Bidwell Marina.
    City: Citrus Heights

    Tips: Fish the points 10 to 15 feet. Any plastics will work.

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 63

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: My son and I fished the Thursday nite tournament out of Lime Saddle. For those of you not familiar with it, its a $10.00 buy in per angler and first place goes to longest fish. Anything over 20 paid entries and they pay a second place. Starts at 5:15 and runs till about 8:30. We opted to fish the west branch cause it was close and we hadn't been in there in awhile. We started fishing in the willows but after 45 minutes or so with no luck, switched to fishing shade pockets, cuts and anywhere water was coming in. The bite picked up immediately with the Reaction Innovations worm in the "Juicy" color, dart headed, working best for me, and my son using a tube, from the same company, in green pumpkin, working best for him. You can find these baits at either Oroville Outdoors or the Tackle Box in Chico. We caught some nice chunky fish but managed only a 16 and three quarters for our longest. That fish came on a jig in brown/purple with matching trailer. Winning fish was close to 18.
    City: Paradise

    Tips: I'd venture to say you could catch fish anywhere right now but if I were to go again, say this weekend, I'd concentrate on all the running water, shade pockets, and steeper banks. The willows should hold fish as well. Senkos in green pumpkin seem to be the hot bait according to some but we didn't use any on this trip. There is some debris out there so be aware of that. Hope to see you Thursday.

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    Water Temp: 57-61

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: As most of you know, the bite at Oroville has been very good - even pretty good on a cold, post-front day yesterday. Rain stopped at dawn and skies briefly cleared and the lake went flat calm. I guided a good fisherman who has only been at bass fishing for a year or two and already has the tournament "fever." He will be competing soon so I can only make a general comment. We ran to many, many spots as I tried to give him an overview of the lake and spring techniques. He did well, catching between 20 and 25 bass. Big bass were hard to find because of the post-front conditions, but the bite should be wide open for all sizes as the weather is finally going to stabilize. I certainly did realize that the fish were deeper than last Saturday. A repeat surprise yesterday - another nice smallmouth caught - about 2 1/4 lbs. I tried different baits for him to see and caught 11 or 12. It was a beautiful post-front day with awesome cloud formations!!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: None this report. Good luck to everyone this weekend!!

Monday, May 16th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 58-63

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: It has been a while sence I have done a report but this Spring has been Awesome.My client today drove all the way from Salinas to cash in on the numbers that Oroville is known for and he was not disapointed. Using a specific senko pattern he was able to hit over the 100 fish mark with post spawn females still up to 2 1/2 lbs and many of those. It was a wild day. All five trips last week the pattern held up as well but with slighter numbers.
    City: Paradise

    Tips: Most things are working, some better than others. The reaction bite is still not producing like the slower presentations. Colors do chage from day to day. If one is not working, change the color!

Saturday, May 14th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 59-62

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I have a Minn Kota 101 lb thrust electric motor on my new Ranger Z521 - but didn't need it today at Oroville. We just put up a sail and let the 25-30 mph wind do its thing!! Wow - 5 hours of guiding 3 people in those conditions can be exhausting!! We did have success however, and that made the day. I took the associate pastor of our church and two teenagers today. They all caught fish and our pastor hadn't fished for a year but did not loose his touch. He caught 6 or 7 spots up to near 3 lbs and a rare full-blooded smallmouth. Those are rare these days! They missed many fish because of the wind but even the boys landed fish near 15 inches. I was worried when the pastor's first bass was 6 inches!! Every fish he caught after seemed to be bigger than the one before with the biggest coming on the last cast of the trip. Nice!! I just netted fish today and kept the new boat from blowing into the rocks!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: It was a simple day today as far as baits went. The trusty 4" Robo worms were all we needed today. Green craw w/chartreuse tail and morning dawn w/chartreuse tail was all we needed. Green with orange tail was good too. All bass were 4 to 10 feet deep. We fished rocky shoreline mostly but caught a few in willows. Wind limited the willow fishing we could do. In 5 seconds we were on the other side of the tree - sailing along!!!!!

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 58-65

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Lake is continuing to fill! It is only ~12 ft from full! The water clarity varies from light stain to clear depending where you are. There are a ton of bushes/trees in the water for once!

    Fished late afternoon this Monday (did not get on the water as early as I would have liked) due to work. Fished in the submerged willow trees with plastics (dropshot & flukes) with little luck. I was surprised it could not get things going. Once the sun was almost down. The crankbait bite was good around the bushes/trees. Tried jerkbaits with limited success. They really wanted cranks today. I was able to make a bad evening into a pretty good one. We hooked into a decent limit...
    City: Elk Grove

    Tips: Talked to a guy who fished the next morning with plastics and they said they did very well...

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: walked perish cove last evening threw some spinners with no luck. then went to a roboworm landed three spots the bigest was around 3 lbs the others were sloters. my son caught a slot size largie on same bait.
    City: paradise

    Tips: it seemed like you had to drop it on ther head. couldnt get a reaction bite. all the fish looked ready to ready to pop.

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

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    Water Temp: 54-60

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Best Day I Ever Had on Oroville. Best Five 16.8 Big Fish 3.81 lb. largemouth. I had a 3.8 lb. spot, a 3.5 lb spot, 3.4 lb. spot, 3.1 spot and a 3.0 lb. spot.

    Started about 6:00 a.m. throwing topwater, then switched to a Spinnerbait and Senkos around 10:00 a.m. Once the wind picked up I started throwing the blade. Caught fish all day long, 46 fish caught. Off the water around 3:00 p.m.

    I asked my wife to meet me at Lime Saddle to take pictures. Best day I ever had on Oroville.
    City: Paradise

Saturday, April 23rd, 2011

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    Water Temp: 58

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished Friday and Saturday. Weather was perfect. Partner and I caught around 15 fish each day hitting the Middle and South forks. As much as I tried topwater I was only able to coax one blowup. Hoefully once the lake and weather stablize ripping and topwater will turn on. Lake does look great!!!! Tons of active eagles!!!
    City: Oroville

    Tips: Most of our fish caught on Senkos and tube baits.
    Most main points produced a fish or two. The spots look like they are ready to burst! Biggest fish went around 2.8#.
    Watch out for logs and trees floating around open water.

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

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    Water Temp: Around 50 or so

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Just want to post some information about the Chico Bass Conservation Club Tournament open to all, this Saturday at Oroville Lake, with launch from the dam. Entry is $80.00 which includes a BBQ dinner and big fish option and I think there's a raffle ticket in the bag as well. This tournament always draws a ton of boats and lots of fun. The lake is just 38' from the top, the weather looks good for Saturday and not much debris in the water. A tournament there last week with 25 boats had a least 20 of them with limits over 10 pounds for 5 fish, so all indications are the fishing will only get better for Saturday. For information you can call 872-0407 or 872-8041 and hope to see you there.
    City: Paradise

    Tips: Hey after a rough winter just go out there and have some fun. The lake is looking better than it has in years. It should be full by sometime in May and then they will probably pull the plug. An old timer told me once when you see the yellow pollen falling out of the trees, throw something with chartreuse in it. Thats my tip, or his tip. See ya

Sunday, April 10th, 2011

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    Water Temp: 51-56

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: I fished Friday with a friend for about 5 hours - checking out the bite in winter conditions - with occasional sleet or snow in the boat! Wow, April??? There was a big hail/sleet storm the night before, so I wasn't too optomistic. We looked at the south fork and found it dead, so moved to the middle fork. We had a lot of bites, mostly on Senkos, in about 10 to 20 feet. We only landed 7 or 8 however - including one largemouth. They were all 13 to 15 inches. Yesterday I guided 2 skilled anglers for a "teach the lake" trip. I can't say much since they are fishing an upcoming tourney. We had to deal with a pretty stiff north wind, but nice weather overall. All sorts of plastics and small swimbaits were our weapons. They caught 16 and I caught 3 or 4, trying out several colors to help them out. We had 2 at 15 inches but most were the same size - 12 to 15 inches. I think the bite will recover very soon, starting today with warmer weather opcoming.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: The lake was much cleaner than I though it would be. Very little floating wood, but that will probably change as the lake is now rising. Water color was excellent. I found the bass to be schooled up a bit. Both days we would catch fish in one small area and then nothing for the next 2 or 3 areas. For example, we fished our best Friday area on Saturday - nothing! So, keep movin'!!

Monday, April 4th, 2011

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    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Hi yall. Went out with jitterbug rabbi and the outlaw. Rabbi caught fat 17'' spotty. Had another that broke his 10lb test line. I had missed two bites. I sore lipped on both of them, which I wasn't to happy about needless to say. Then I caught 20inch 5lb largie, no bs. My biggest fish on the lake. My late pa's birthday made it bittersweet. All in all good day. Jitterbug had no bites. Found two crank baits though.
    City: palermo

    Tips: Took picture threw back fish