Submit
Report

Oroville Lake and Reports

Limit:
Click for interactive map

Sunday, June 13th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: ?

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Fished from 3:00pm to dusk with Steve Y. fished hard for 15 to 20 slot bass, depth from 0 to 25' with 4" worms arons magic on a darter head, a few on split-shot rigs. I thought this lake was easy?
    City: sac

    Tips: Don't take my advice when fishing O-ville

  • By

    Water Temp: 74-75

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Took my grandson out for some fun fishing. Ran up the north fork to a small waterfall. Caught 7 spots within 20 feet of the fall on weightless 9J Senkos (smoke blue pearl)...all were in the slot. Decided to look for some offshore suspended spots so I cast my little weightless Senko as far out into the center of the cove as possible...pretty far on 5# test line! Just let it sink, and sink, and sink...then WHAM! It took off like I'd hooked a marlin! Turned out to be a 3 pound salmon. Cool...dinner! In the next 90 minutes, we caught salmon on just about every cast. Some hit the Senko as it dropped. Others, were deep and would eat it below the boat as it was slowly jigged about 40' down over 65' of water. Brought home a limit for the BBQ. One of them gave us a real thrill as it kept jumping 2-3 feet out of the water like a sail fish! Even jumped right over the net as my grandsome flailed around trying to catch it...he's never netted fish before so it was really fun watching him react to that hot fish!

    Any way, after the salmon fun was over, we ran back to the main body and caught dozens of slot bass on dropshot rigs in 20-25'. Used a 4" baby bass colored worm. Didn't catch any spots over the slot, but that was okay because my grandson thought they were all giants! HaHa!

    Saw enormous numbers of suspended fish and lots of bait balls in the top 20 feet of water. The pond smelt are tiny...less than an inch long. I suspect small plastics will continue catching small spots because I dn't see how bigger spots can't possibly eat enough of those little smelt to keep their body weight up. They've got to be keying on crayfish and small bluegill. I didn't test this theory today but I'm going back next week to throw crawfish imitators (jigs, hulagrubs, tubes) looking for those over-the-slot fish. Will also try bluegill colored spinnerbaits.
    City: Fair Oaks

    Tips: Take a kid fishing on Oroville NOW!!! The child will remember the trip fondly forever.

Friday, June 11th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 59-74

    Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

    Report: *********After Bay****************
    After swearing I wouldn

    Tips: Watch the water temp. They are pulling heavily and the temp swings from the 50s to the 70s depending where you are. Naturally there is a strong current in some places as well.

Saturday, June 5th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 70

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Went to Oroville to fish the Anglers Choice Semi-Pro on June 5. Played the numbers game and spent the day on the Cul-em-rite. Caugt fish on topwater(spittin' image), rip-baits, hulas, and dropshot. Caught my first 2 largemouth on this lake both were in the trees and caught on a Roboworm 3 inch leach in Aaron's Magic on a dropshot. Caught some fish on the hulas in motor oil and brown with black flake. We caught many fish (lost count) mud lines made by all the boat traffic were the best for numbers using the drop shot, especially later in the day. Caught a fish on each of my last 5-6 casts, sure makes it hard to leave. We weighed in 5 for 7.79 with a .2 dead fish penalty that ended us in 7th place, 7.81 would have tied for 5th. Big fish was 2.24 and I think 8 something won it. I have heard of schools of roaming fish and finally saw them in 2 different coves on the lake, kills you when you know 1 solid bite will give you the win and you see about 10 of them just cruisin and none will bite. Talk about frustrating. All in all it was a good day. We spent our day in the Middle Fork but I think the bite was the same all over. Lots of healthy fish, but the decent bites were hard to come by. Anyway these lakes are not our forte and the learning curve is steep, but we will keep plugging. Now back to the Delta for some froggy action.
    City: San Jose

    Tips: The main points held fish but it was the points within coves that we really put the fish in the boat. If you have a young one that wants to fish get a dropshot with a small green worm/leach and fish the mudlines, after getting used to the soft bite you should be able to put a bunch in the boat. loads of fun.

Sunday, May 30th, 2004

  • By

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Pulled the boat out of clear lake after a flippin bite in the keys and headed to oroville as the wind 2was pretty bad. Launched at 4:30 and headed to the north fork. started dropshottin and throwin cranks for a quick 20 fish(none over the slot. Moved to another area in N. fork and saw about 30 spots cruising in a cove. These spots were big for oroville. Threw jerks, cranks and topwater for 20 minutes and no takers. Then the sun dissapeared over the canyon and it was on. First hit a splash it. stayed with it but the hits were sometimes short. switched to a spinnerbait and burned it. For the next hr and 1/2
    the spots crushed that spinnerbait like i've never seen. Moved down the bank hitting points, coves, and straight banks. every point had a couple 2lbers. The later it got the further the spots moved back into the coves. Every decent hiding spot had a quality spot. Must have landed 40 in 90 minutes with 10-12 over the slot. A couple were close to 3 lbs. Best quality day on oroville for me. Dream Day
    City: Brentwood

    Tips: Stay late if you can. Fish are shallow late. Spinnerbait in clear skirt and double silver blades. Any fast moving bait mimicking baitfish would probably kill em. Bigger fish positioned on points and biggest bolders inside coves.

Friday, May 28th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 71

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Went up to Oroville for Memorial day Weekend. camped @ Loafer Creek Horse camp. Went out Thursday after dinner got on the water around 5:30pm. Got a fish while waiting for partner to return from parking truck. So we just started fishing right at the Loafer Creek ramp. Never fired up the big motor, just worked from Loafer Creek towards the bridge and caught around 20 fish. Stopped at 8:30pm.
    Got up at safe light on Friday, Ran up to the middle fork. Caught over 50 fish with maybe 7 or 8 over the slot. 2 smallies and the rest spots.
    City: Suisun City

    Tips: Draggin worms was the trick for us. every point has fish right now, color don't seem to matter much. Split shotting out fished drop shotting this week!

Sunday, May 23rd, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: n/a

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: well i made the trip up to orville with 2 other friends and we did well from the bank. we first tried the dam with only dinks. then moved to loafer creek and i ended up spotting a fish in about 3 ft of water on a bed still, tossed a watermeloncandy senko and next i was lippin a plump 6lb largie. i always catch largies in loafer for some reason, prolly all the manzanitas they planted there.we ended up with about 35 fish and 9 over slot. we walked the right side of the creek. and im sure we pissed a few houseboaters off with us fishing so close to there homes,lol...most fish were chillen by the boats.and another thing i love about oroville besides the great fishing..it only cost 2 bucks for bankers!..thats awesome if you ask me. im used to paying 8 at camp far west or 4 at folsom.
    City: Sacramento

    Tips: it all works pretty much...we threw the basic senkos,robos,camache jacks..no particular color really did better then the other.


    tight lines!!!!

Wednesday, May 19th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 67-69

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I think there is nothing more exciting about guiding than to take folks from out-of-state to a beautiful Calif lake on a beautiful day - and have the fishing beautiful!! I took a husband-wife from Tennessee Wed. on a great people day - crisp breeze and bluebird sky. The lake never looked better but I thought the fishing might be tough. They LOVED the view from the dam road - what I call the eighth wonder of the world! We had to start at 9 am because of their schedule. I took them to one of my favorite nook and crannies in the middle fork and he and she both catch one on their first cast! Oh no - a double jinx! Well, it only jinxed her - she really struggled even though her husband and I gave her a lot of help. She missed a lot of fish but did catch another near the end of the trip. He was NOT jinxed and together we caught 33, and believe it or not, 8 over the slot! I caught one almost 18 inches and he caught one over 17 inches (spots)! We didn't weigh them, but I thought I was fishing in late March because of the size! Wow!! We had a great time and they will always remember California fishing!!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: I really was surprised by the size of the bass for mid-May and bright skies. I'm sure the breeze helped. It made fishing difficult for her, I'm sure. We drop-shotted and split-shotted for the whole trip, using Camanche Jack's early dawn, green craw, and blue smoke worms Also used 4" Berkley Power Worms. The near 18 inch spot was caught on a free-falling #240 Senko in open water. There are tons of suspended fish, but this day there were plenty on the bottom in 20 to 30 feet of water. We targeted clay banks with chunk rock in the middle and south forks. We fished a lot of willows (shadows), but that didn't work well. Most of the fish were in open water. This really was one of the most enjoyable trips I have ever had at Oroville - great people and great fishing!!

Monday, May 17th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 70-71

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: Hit the northfork for a while yesterday and caught a few on a jerkbait in the morning then switched to the bitsy jig with yum chunk trailer and found a few nice fish on steep banks with chunk rock. Biggest fish went 16 1/2 inches and only went 2 pounds. used boldbluegill 6" robos on jig heads to end my trip. I most have caught 25 fish in about a hour and a half on those but nothing big.
    City: Paradise

Monday, May 10th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 69

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I hit the lake at about 3 p.m. today and fished till 8:30. I hit the Bloomer area first and did well with a jerkbait. Moved to the west branch and fished Spring Valley, Vinton Gulch and shithouse cove, used a 6" robo on a jig-head and slayed them. I finished in Parish Cove and did well there too. I used a bitsy jig green/brown with a black Yum trailer. I landed three nice large-mouths in Parish along with a bunch of spots. The biggest one was 3 pounds. I caught two fish on topwater right before I left, with a zara spook.
    City: Paradise

    Tips: It really is useless to give any tips right now. Pretty much anything you throw out there gets bit. I guess the only real tip I can give you is watch where you park your truck and trailer. I had some useless idiot hit my trailer while I was on the lake. The @!#% face hit it hard enough to dent my fender into my tire. So pay attention to who you are parked next to. I know I will for now on!

Friday, May 7th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 62

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: went out the past 2 days with my best friend skip. Caught 200+ bass! Got bored with all the small ones but did get a few in the 3 lb range, largest one went 9lbs. Finally used every last worm we had in the boat and called it, didn't matter, we were getting bored. Tried odd ball lures for fun we even used 8" snakes and they bit that too. Alot of fish but alot of slot fish.
    City: Galt

Tuesday, May 4th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 66-71

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Friend and I caught 50+ drop shotting early before the wind, then later bouncing 1/4 oz jigs with grubs on the bottom in 5-15'of water. Just about any color worked. We caught them on at least 9 or 10 different colors. watermelon, warmouth, pumpkin seed, green pumpkin, aarons magic, morning dawn, new ayu,...

    6 or 7 over the slot, most 12" or so, same as usual. I want to know how that guy caught that 13lb bass in this lake at this past weekends tourney! WOW! I'm sure I'd poop myself after catching these bazillion 12" fish then to hook onto something like that!

    The wind was pretty annoying in the afternoon. Had similar day last Tuesday without the wind and it was nice.
    City: Paradise

    Tips: Rocky shores were best. Better on the midsized chunky rocks than the big bouldery type, but they were ok too. 100+ fish in our last 2 outtings. I guess things are heating up. If you know where those 13lb'ers are hanging outlet me know!

  • By

    Water Temp: 68-72

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Had a anther great day today caught 40 more. I would have caught more but with the wind I was on my trolling motors all day and drained the battery. 80+ fish in two days I can't complain. Yesterday I caught all my fish on worms today I could only use worms til about 10:30 then the wind came up and I went to a crank bait with the same colors as the worms that worked good brown and green.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: Today I caught my fish on a crank bait. I fished rocky shore lines with A deep running crank bait some fish where deep around 15-20 feet and some where right on the top.

Monday, May 3rd, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: ???

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: 80+ fish 7 over the slot only 2 LMBs. Biggest fish maybe 2lbs. The spots will eat anything!
    City: Dixon

    Tips: Be prepared to lose some skin on your thumbs!

  • By

    Water Temp: 68-73

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Left bidwell this morning and it looked ugly very windy went strait to the south fork and it was glass and I never left. I caught more bass today then I have ever caught in one day 40-45 fish lost count. I caught all but 2 on a 4" brown and green tip worm the other two on a crank bait. Talk about fun I am going back tomorrow for more.
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: Fish slow with worms shake it and let it sit and watch your line A lot of my fish I did not fill just watch my line start going to one side or the other and set the hook. Watch your line.

Saturday, May 1st, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 64-66

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: I took a husband (his birthday gift certificate) and wife team Saturday who were new to bass fishing and had never worm fished. We tried a little topwater and rippin' for awhile with no results. So we started the split-shotting lesson 101 and soon the spotted bass started making their way to the boat in a hurry. The problem was, it was his birthday and she was catching 'em! How nervy!! He eventually got the hang of it and did well himself. We stayed in the south fork the whole trip and wound up with 31 spotted bass - only one dink - the rest all over 12 inches. Biggest was only 2.1 lbs and was caught in 30 feet of water on the last cast! We did have 6 over the slot. Yes folks, I looked at my X-19 meter that said 22 feet and I could see the bottom!! It may be time to switch to lighter line and look for shadows provided by bushes and rocks. They had a ball landing those hard fighting spots on the great Loomis 782 rods!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: We probably could had had some topwater action had I gone to shadow areas in the middle fork. But I knew the worm bite would be excellent in some of my favorite areas in the south fork - and it was! Quality bass were mostly in the 15 to 25 foot range, with a few deeper. Lots of bass are suspended. We used Berkley 4 inch Power worms and Camanche Jack early dawn 6 inch worms. We drop-shotted at few on Yamamoto Kut-Tail worms. Senkos did not work well for me as I tried them in open water like I did in my previous trip. We were looking for creek channels, cuts, flats with drop-offs, and any other structure that provided a good holding area for quality bass.

Sunday, April 25th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 68.5

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Hit the West Branch again from 3-7:30pm. Thanks to the zillion wake boarders and their 3 foot waves and blarring music the water was a little more stained today. There were still some pretty clear areas back in coves as well. The water temp was up a few degrees, and the fishing seemed a little tougher.

    Got bit on both green pumpkin twin tail yamamoto hula grups fished on a jig, and single tail pumpkin seed yamamoto hula grubs. Caught a few on a Staycee 90 jerk bait, and 6" senkos texas rigged. It was a light brown with a purple vein, same as Wednesday, though I doubt the color matters all that much. Kept switching it up hoping for better results which never came. Most fish were caught in the slightly stained water on points or just inside a point.
    City: Paradise

    Tips: Tips? Ha, ha, please give me some!! :) I'm catching a few but I ain't catching a limit weighin 10+ like all these tourney guys I read about keep doing. They must be sprinkling pixie dust on their magic worms or something! When I find the secret sauce I'll be sure to let you all know.

Wednesday, April 21st, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 66

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Water was crystal clear, I could easily see 20+ feet to the bottom. Fish were a bit spooky when close. This was the first clear day after those April showers earlier this week and no boaters on the lake I guess. Lake is at the same level it has been since it dropped about 5 feet 3 weeks back.

    Fished the West Branch from 7am-11am. Had a luck with some yamamoto green pumpkin twin tail hula grubs, and 6" senkos rigged on a jig or texas style.
    City: Paradise

Friday, April 16th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 57-60

    Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

    Report: Sometimes I think there is no better lake to teach bass fishing than Oroville! Yesterday I guided three gentlemen - 2 new to bass fishing, and we caught 38 in a 6 hour trip. The weather wasn't real great - clear and VERY windy in the afternoon. We only used worms and Senkos because of the number of people in the boat. The 2 new guys really picked up split-shotting quickly and caught a lot of bass. All spots and 2 redeye with only 3 over the slot, but only 4 dinks. One fellow lost one that might have gone 4 pounds - darn! Today (Sat) I guided 2 fellows who wanted to learn new techniques and the weather was totally different - no wind and flat. I put Staycee ripbaits on their rods and they ripped to their hearts content - off and on all day. I think they ripped 17. Between that, split-shotting, drop-shotting, and Senkos. we boated 41 with 6 over the slot and a limit at 10 pounds. We had some nice fish! In spite of the cloudy weather, we actually caught some of the quality worm fish from 20 to 30 feet deep. The small bass would hit the worm and the big fish would just slowly pull on it until the rod loaded up. A great 2 days with some great clients - lots of laughs!!
    City: Yuba City

    Tips: We found the quality bass on any type of structure with a break to deep water. This is probably because the lake is dropping some. Drop-shotting was working well - we just didn't do much of it the past 2 days. If you could find submerged brush to work your bait into, you would hook a good fish. Throwing #240 Senkos for suspended fish worked very well on Fri but not so well Sat. Funny, I thought it would be the opposite. Water in the south fork is very clear - too clear for spinnerbaits I thought. I could see down as much as 15-20 feet in spots. Fish #41 today was a 14 inch smallmouth in the middle fork that one of the fellows caught. There still are some left!! Worm color really didn't seem to matter too much today - several standard colors worked. You just had to keep it on the bottom. Suggestion - don't pump your rod at all. Just slowly lift it. Remember, at Oroville, when you move your rod an inch, the bait is probably falling a foot. Pump it four inches and you have moved your bait out of the strike zone. Just my opinion!

Thursday, April 15th, 2004

  • By

    Water Temp: 63-65

    Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

    Report: I went fishing on wednesday and the first thing I noticed was the lake had dropped. That's not what I wanted to see. But after 23 years of living in Paradise and fishing this lake you can't help but get used to it. Anyway.... the lake was very windy and all my normal spots are un-fishable when the wind howles so I tried fishing where I could. I had good luck on spinnerbaits in chart/white and some luck with ripbaits, all of my fish were a little deeper than normal but still pretty shallow for Oroville.
    City: Paradise

    Tips: all my bites with the spinnerbaits were pretty good THUMPS and all were on a steady retrieve. The rip-bait bite was also a pretty good thump and they seemed to like the jerk, jerk, jerk pause the most. Good Luck out there!!!!