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Northern California Lake Fishing Report

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Friday, October 4th, 2024

  • Lake County
    • By

      Report: Spent 5 days on Clear Lake last week, and despite all the tournament weights that would say this lake is on fire, it’s not. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but you really have to work hard to find the quality bites. So lake conditions - water temp was 70-77 and the weather was a low pressure cooling.

      The first days were high pressure, heating up on the first day with a high of 85. The little fish seemed willing to bite a ChatterBait and a Keitech. The second day, the weather highs where going to be 100+. The fishing really wasn’t that good. I fished docks, shade, tules, and only had three bites all day.

      The rest of the time I had hot days 100+, but the fish seemed to be ok with that. I threw a ChatterNait in the morning in 3-5 ft of water, but I would have to make multiple casts and different retrieves to every dock piling. I fished it like I knew there was a fish on every piling and I just had to trick them into eating my bait. I had over 20 fish with the largest going 9.89. That was fun.

      About 10:30 am, I would put the reaction down and go flippin' and I just flipped tules, brush and any place I could find shade. I’d go for a hour until I would find em and whenI found one, I would get 3-4. I got into some wrestling matches thatI just didn’t win.

      So if you want to have a great time, plan on spending a couple days at Clear Lake, because once you figure out how you want to catch them, multiple limits of 20lbs is possible. The baits I had success with JackHammer in shad with Missle Bait Spunk Shad on Frenzy Nail, D Bomb with a 3/4 oz Flippin' weight, R2S Big Poppa and a Drop Shot.

Thursday, October 3rd, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 70

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched usual time 6am at Paradise; anticipating high tide at 7:18, ran to one of our fav flats areas to try some topwater; soon as we got to our starting spot, saw that a sea lion was feeding right in the flats we wanted to fish; we watched him dive into tule clumps with his back and tail above water. Then he'd come up with a bass, tail and half the body sticking out, then in a second, chomped and gulped down. He worked both the inside as well as perimeter of the flats. In 25 mins of watching, we watched him come up with a bass 9 times, and some of those bodies and tails looked pretty sizeable. I've always seen the sea lion(s) on the move but never really saw them feed in an area. We tried to move away from him but he'd work as close as 10-15 ft from our boat, coming out of nowhere. We finally got fed up and gave up on that area. We could only imagine how many fish he ate before we got there.
      OK anyways, we moved across the flats to a rock wall and started crankin' both shad and red craw crankbaits, they were taking both. Managed many rats but also several 1 - 1.5 lbers and an occasional 2lber. Since I had a choppo tied on, I threw into a tule cut up against the rock wall. As I waited for the "circles" to dissipate, I saw my choppo just go under so I set the hook and boated one. So I started working the choppo slow, not reeling it in but subtle twitches like a popper. This worked for a bunch more takers, no real blowups, just inhaling it down. I did get a choice few reeling in for the next cast and they came up and hit it, those 3 or 4 x were the only actual blowups I got. My brother was deadstickin' a worm on a shaky head and got his that way and on a dropshot, same type of worm.
      Ended early and off the water by 11:30am... short but fun morning, other than watching the sea lion munching. Nothing over 2lbs but still fun!!

      Tips: As always, not qualified to give tips, but here's what worked:
      - crankbaits - bone/white Speed Trap along with Lucky Craft DRS 2.0 in TO Craw
      - Choppo 75 in bone/white, worked it like a popper, slow and subtle twitches
      - Dropshot - 6" Roboworm - MM & MMIII
      - Shaky head worm, deadstick/draggin' - MM & MMIII

Thursday, September 26th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 66-69

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched early at Paradise, outgoing lowering (low tide 9:04); started throwing white/shad pattern cranks and managed mostly rats but a few 12" to 1 lbers. That slowed down and I was considering going a red craw pattern but decided to slow down with the lowering tide and started throwing wacky senko / stick worms. I was rigged weightless 6" and my brother was throwing 5" on 1/8 oz jighead. He was hooking up 3 to 1 on me so I tied on a 1/8 oz jighead and started catching up to him. We were working shallow at rockwall/tules out to the dropoff/ledges and the holes in the weed beds in between. Fish seemed to be hunkered down in the weeds and on the outside ledge at the bottom (about 8-12 feet). My brother was deadsticking / dragging while I was working mine more. He was still getting more hookups than me but he has more patience than me for deadstick/dragging. Anyways, ended the morning early with my brother boating a 4lber (4lb 5oz).

      Tips: As always, not qualified to give tips but here's what worked and didn't:
      worked:
      - white/shad pattern cranks (I'm thinkin' red craw would have worked but I went to plastics when crankin' slowed down)
      - 5" and 6" wacky senko type stick worms in green pumpkin, junebug, and black/red flake

      didn't work:
      - topwater (white buzzbait, whopper plopper) ... actually now that I think of it, my brother did get one on a popper early on.
      - dropshot (but didn't really fish it long)

Thursday, September 19th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 68

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Usual early start, high tide; decided to explore; tried some new and inviting areas; managed only a few rats and barely keepers; with a slow start, ran back to some usual spots but not much better, very slow, junk fished for only a couple of keepers. Some guys at the ramp said it was combination of last night's full moon and the temp drop. I honestly don't know but it sure was a complete 180 from previous outings. Oh well, try again next week.

      Tips: As always, not qualified to give tips but here's what worked today:
      - smaller jerkbaits (90 / Jr size)
      - wacky and T-rigged senko/stick worms 5" & 6"
      - shakey head 6" worms
      Everything else....NADA

Thursday, September 12th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 70-71

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched at Paradise about 6:15 outgoing almost low, then low-incoming; ran down to usual spots off the main San Joaquin. First stop caught a bunch of rats and 12”ers, then 1 to 2lbers along the rock wall ledges. All mine were on a new Evergreen Wild Hunch 5 crank, in Fire Craw… I like it because even the bill is orange/red. No topwater at all so didn’t put a whole lotta time on it… tried popper (Rio Rico) Eclipse which previously got a bunch but this time nada. Briefly went to a whopper plopper and again, nada; went back to my crank and immediately started catching again. Nothing over heavy 2lbs but we’re always ok with that. Most of the crankbait fish came on the outside weed line along the ledge as we worked rock walls. We did catch a few throwing into the trough just off the rocks and really slow rolled it like a wake bait…they would come up and just haul it down. And that was at low incoming tide! My brother and another buddy caught on dropshots and neds along with jerk baits. Buddy also picked up a couple swimming a 5" swim senko. Toward the end of our morning til we quit before noon, all of us were throwing jerk baits and still catching rats and 1lbers; at this point, it was just at slack tide on Disappointment. We just worked the outside weed edge at the drop off / ledge. Decent morning...overall bite window was nice to us except topwater!

      Tips: As always, I'm not qualified to give tips but here's what worked and didn't work:
      What worked:
      • Fire craw crankbait
      • Jerkbaits in SG threadfin and matte pearl white
      • Ned and dropshot using robo ned desert craw and robo 6" MMIII
      • Weightless wacky and t-rigged senko both 5” and 6” – junebug and green pumpkin

      Didn’t work:
      • Topwater (I guess the bite window was locked closed for us) poppers & ploppers
      • Bladed jig (I’m not real accomplished fishing chatterbaits; trying to get better. Yikes
      • Spinnerbait

Saturday, August 10th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished the Delta this weekend. Launched early and stayed on Main River. On San Joaquin from Ladds to the Port, the water temp was 79 - 82 degrees. Threw ChatterBaits and Whopper Plopper and caught a ton of shorts, but only 4 keepers. And oh yeah, 2 stripers. There was a lot of bait down town with mad fury’s of fish pushing bait. Tried to capitalize on that but didn’t happen. Caught all keepers on flats with sparse grass on the lower tide. The best colors were green pumpkin and red for the ChatterBait and all white for the Whopper Plopper.

      Tips: Low Tide

Friday, August 9th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 78

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched 6am at Paradise; as we were cruisin' to our first set of flats for some topwater, we saw surface activity and thought there may be some stripers so we stopped and threw topwater and crankbaits; bunch of shakers but was still fun just to feel the hookup. Decided to just start from that area and crank toward our flats. In first 50 yds, Had a couple of bumps but no takers. I remembered what Steve Cooper/In Deep On The Delta, said in his latest vid that he was seeing a lot of shad bait activity and so I switched my gold/orange craw to a speed trap in sexy shad. First cast, 2lb 2oz; within the next 10 casts, hooked up 3 more in 1-2 lb range. Brother switched to shad pattern crank and buddy in the back continued with a small 75 or 90 jerkbait; all of us hooked up after switching to the shad pattern (thanx Steve). Brother and buddy also alternated with ned and 5" wacky stickbaits and hooked up, but not like the reaction bite. Finally reached our flats and threw poppers and ploppers; managed 3-4 nice blowups 12" to 1lb size; brother and buddy had same action. Moved to another rock wall and threw jerkbaits; few more 12" to 1lbers; ran to another spot we usually start at but only managed a few 10"ers and couple of 1 lbers. By then it's 9:30 and we moved back up Disappointment closer to Paradise; worked some tule points and managed a few more 1lbers and a 2lber. 10:30, backs were killin' us so decided to end the morning there. For us, it was a decent and fun day... fish on the hook, no matter the size. We're easy!

      Tips: As always, not qualified to give tips but here's what worked for us:
      - crankbaits in shad pattern (speed trap, 1.5s)
      - jerkbaits in shad and white (jackall rerange 110)
      - wacky senko/stick 5" in junebug, green pumpkin
      - ned/neko in desert craw (roboworm color - grn pumpkin/orange)

      I tried a free-rig using geecrack bellows shad 3.8" but I couldn't stand the slow pace so switched back to crankin and jerkbait.

Monday, July 29th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 70s

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Hope the wind doesn’t blow this weekend for the guys fishing the frog tournament like it did last weekend. We didn’t have much success found a lot of fish, however never made the right changes to get them in the boat. We found fish in open water behind current in the soft water. We had 20-30 blow ups. The fish jumped over the frogs, and swiped at them. They missed the bait a lot. Wasn't a lot different on the tide changes.

      Tips: If the winds leave a big bow in your line, take a few back while setting the hook.

Saturday, July 27th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 76-77

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched Paradise 615am...mid-incoming tide; ran down to some flats believing topwater was in order.... nada!!! One blowup the whole time we tried those flats and we've had non-stop blowups in the past. Dang!! Decided to hit a rockwall close by and switched to a jerkbait (Jackall Rerange) and danged if I didn't get 6 hookups in 10 mins, 10" rats to 2.5 lbs. Continued following the rockwall into a cove and continued to get hooked up on the jerkbait while my brudda and buddy worked wacky senko/stick baits and neds. We prolly had 20 hookups in that cove. Moved on to some other fav areas and I continued to throw the Rerange and it kept producing. The Rerange has a weird weight transfer system and it makes a funny snapping noise when you cast... made me think my line or rod tip was snapping but no issue. I'm still tryin' to get used to it. Lower backs were killin' us by 11am so off the water by noon (sucks gettin' old). Fun day though!!

      Tips: As always, I'm not qualified to give anyone tips but here's what worked for us:
      - jerkbait - Jackall Rerange 110 matte pearl white, Megabass Ito 110 perch
      - ned rig Roboworm desrt craw, MMIII, June Bug
      - wacky senko/stick bait 5" June Bug, Green Pumpkin blue, red, or black flake
      Tried my fav popper Bubble Walker but not a dang blowup... guess we were either too late or too early for the topwater bite.... dang!!

Sunday, July 21st, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 79

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched at safelight from the East Delta on a high outgo. Targeted the main river for emergent grass. Caught a couple on topwater but they were small. Tried the bends on the main river to figure out if they were set up in front or behind the current. Ran that the better part of the north to the south for a couple dozen on topwater. Bite got a lot tougher aftter the tide switch.

      Tips: Seems like every day their setup is changing.
      Whopper Plopper, Buzzbait and Frogs

Sunday, July 14th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 81

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Hi all... Launched out of Lazy M yesterday evening. Went North to Holland Cut and it was pretty windy when i arrived. Started with a white spinnerbait around tule's. ( I can't spell toolies...lol) Caught some decent fish with that. The tide was still going out around 3 or 4. So I started throwing the ol topwater.... boooooom booooom booooom....never put it down the rest of the day. Amazing topwater bite is happening now. The water is warm, the frogs are croaking at dusk. Just an amazing place to be in my mind. (most of you know what i speak of) Just amazing..!! I will be honest, when I was younger I used to follow Dee to see where he would go. He knew I was following him...But he always would stop and talk about the 'Amazing' opportunities there are to catch fish. Most of my spots are his, and I respect the fact that they were shared with me. So I owe a lot to that man. His spots will be in my Lowrance(mind) for as long as I am here. And let me tell you that they produce good fish almost every time I visit them. Thanks for the knowledge Sir. I caught some fish and remembered where I came from. Thanks for reading my banter...Love you all.

      Tips: Buzz bait
      Frog
      Popper
      Plopper
      Amazing !

Thursday, June 27th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 75-76

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched 6:15am, mid-low incoming; started with bluegill pattern squarebill; brother started with plopper, lots of blowups but only boated 3 12"ers and 1 about a pound; crankin had pretty good opening bites, several 10-12"ers, then got better with a few 1 lbers up to a couple 3 lbers; slowed a bit so threw wacky stick worms and Roboworm nekos. Landed a few more 1 lbers. I wanted to try throwing an inline spinner with a 3.3" keitech; managed a couple 12"ers and then a 2 lber. First time trying inline spinner for bass, was kinda neat! Brother caught a few on the bluegill crankbait and wacky stickbaits; buddy got his on LV500, letting it hit grass tops and snapping it out. He also got a few keepers on dropshot and Yamatanuki in green pumpkin. Overall a decent day having fun just hooking up; didn't care if they were 12" or 1-3lbs, just had fun getting fish on the hook.

      Tips: As always I don't think I'm qualified to give tips but here's what worked for us:
      - bluegill pattern squarebill (Megabass S-Crank, 1.5 Secret Gill color)
      - Shad Rap 7 (also bluegill and pumpkinseed) used to go deeper fishing ledges
      - In-line spinner with 3.3" keitech (Picasso All Terrain 3/8 oz white)
      - Berkley General 5 and 6" wacky and t-rigged, Junebug and Green Pumpkin
      - 6 and 7" Roboworms neko-rigged, MMIII
      - LV500 lipless, Sexy Shad
      - Whopper Plopper 90 and 110, Loon and Bone
      - Yamamoto Yamatanuki - Green Pumpkin

Monday, May 13th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 70-72

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched Paradise 6am; low incoming. Worked quad buzzbait for about 30 mins and picked up 3 decent 1 lbers. On missed blowups, followed up with a Hula Popper and picked up a few, but mostly were juveniles 10-11"ers, but followup with a popper still worked. Tried crankin' with a red/orange craw 1.5 but not a lot of takers, still picked up a couple; switched to Livetarget matte bluegill and they seemed to like that one better. Eventually switched to dropshot with 6" MMIII; after losing a bunch on the jump, I realized I was using the wrong hook because I was trying the snell method instead of palomar knot. The hook was a Hayabusa Muscle Spin wacky hook which looks like the Nishine drop shot hook I use with a snell knot. But the angle of the hook on the Hayabusa leaves it open to unpinning if used for dropshot. Once I changed to the Nishine DS hook still using a snell, no more lost fish. I did use the Hayabusa for wacky stick worm (General) and caught a few with no unpinned fish. Just won't use it for dropshot! Wind was blowin' pretty good so off the water by noon.

      Tips: As always, not qualified to give tips, but here's what worked for us:
      - quad prop buzzbait - white with white spunk shad trailer.
      - 1.5 squarebill in red/orange craw (just a couple on this one)
      - 1.5 livetarget squarebill matte bluegill (they seemed to like this one)
      - dropshot with 6" MMIII - only 6" from sinker to hook length.
      - wacky stick worm - 5" General in junebug and green pumpkin

Monday, May 6th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 61-63

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: On the water 6:30 launching from Paradise. Cold morning with medium to strong breeze and current (high outgo). Initially started with jointed wakebait; 1 hookup, 10"er, plenty of little "nips" but could tell they were just little juveniles. Switched to red craw squarebill and two 8-10"ers immediately grabbed it. Buddy also hooked up 17.5" striper; we thought it was on but we were wrong. Nothing else for next couple hours of kitchen sink junk fishing. Brother finally caught a keeper on wacky senko. Nothing else after that. When fishing plastics (dropshot and stick worms), got lots of little bait-stealer taps but nothing sizeable. Wind died down by about 11am but we were through; I'm sure if we stayed the whole day we would've eventually gotten a decent bite window but we don't have options to choose and come at different times of the day/evening; early morning is what we can manage and it's always our luck that the morning we get follows a cold front as was this past weekend; this early morning didn't pan out. Hoping for steady warm weather and I believe our fun will happen.

      Tips: As always said, I'm not qualified to give tips, but here's what we tried:
      - jointed wake bait (Mikey Jr. / Bomber ) = 1 juvenile and plenty of subtle nipping but no real takers
      - 1.5 squarebills in red craw and shad = couple of juveniles and striper
      - wacky rigged 5" stick bait The General = 1 keeper and lots of bait stealer nips and taps, nothing of any size
      - dropshot 4 & 6" roboworms, MMIII, Junebug and Aaron's Magic = goose egg but alot of tiny taps, no take
      - 3/16 and 1/4 oz underspins with 3.8" keitech and horny toad = goose egg
      - black frog = goose egg
      - bladed jig in both shad and red/orange = goose egg
      All the above is what we've done well with at this time of season but obviously not every time :) ... again, my belief is that we were limited to a cold morning and I'm pretty sure if we had the whole day to get to that few degrees of warmup later in the day or late afternoon, we would have encounted the bite window(s). Just sayin'.... still have plenty of warm days/weeks comin' and lookin' forward to it! Tight lines/bent rods everyone!

  • Tuolumne County
    • By

      Water Temp: 65

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished the houseboat area in the kayak yesterday. Water clarity 8-10 ft. Rained in the morning about 2 hours then cleared up started catching fish. Dropshot, small swimbait and ned rig bite was good once the rain stopped and the sun came out. Lots of dinks, largest fish today was 2.9. Fish came out of 5-18ft

Saturday, May 4th, 2024

  • Amador County
    • By

      Water Temp: 71

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: by StanL » Sat May 04, 2024 4:39 am

      image2 (1).jpeg
      I really had a great time today fishing at Lake Camanche with the newest member of our team. Earl Dalton IV and I want to say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. This guy is a hammer ????.

      We picked up two spinning poles, one with the dropshot, and one with a Frenzy Nail. Both with a 6 inch worm and that’s what we threw all day long!

      Thanks to the color shading on the HumminBird Lakemaster Plus chip it made staying in the 12 to 15 foot range a breeze.

      We targeted main lake ledges, any place that had shallow water and deep water close by seemed to be the ticket.

      We caught and released over 25 fish! We decided not to target the spawning fish that were shallow so all the fish we did catch were spots.

      The lake level is extremely full. The surface temperature of about 71° with a good 10 to 12 foot visibility.

      I hope this helps.
      Good luck Fishing.
      ????Stan lafever

Thursday, April 18th, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 62-63

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Tough but fun day. On the water at 6:30am... already dropping high outgo.... Started out just south of Frank's. Not a lot of bites but decent fish when we did get em to chew. Nothing on topwater (popper, plopper) Went to red craw squarebill and inline spinners (just wanted to try alternative to chatterbait) .... white w/shad Keitech trailer.... managed a few keepers to 2lbs plus a nice 20" striper...kept that one! Paralleled outside weedline, nothing inside the trough so paralleled outside the weedline since the tide was dropping. Also managed a few on red craw and shad squarebills; buddy also managed a few in fairly deep ledge (12-16 sec countdown) on his shad pattern LV500. Brother hooked up a few 1-2 lbers on junebug Yamatanuki. Lost a nice one on dropshot...was taking line fast and broke off at the leader after a couple mins of playing it....never tied on another one and just put the dropshot rod down. Nothing on my 5" General..... had to really work for the bites but they were fun once they hit.

      Tips: Not really qualified to give tips but here's what worked for us:
      - red craw and shad pattern squarebills
      - white inline spinner with shad Keitech 3.3"
      - junebug Yamatanuki
      - shad pattern LV500 (12-16 sec countdown)

Saturday, April 6th, 2024

  • Shasta County
    • By

      Report: Good afternoon Shasta Lake!!!
      We are officially above the 10 foot mark! ????
      The permitted businesses on the lake had our annual spring meeting with the Forest Service this week. As promised, I wanted to share some of the information we learned, and it was a LOT!
      LAKE LEVELS - First and foremost was an update from Don Bader, Area Manager for the Bureau of Reclamation regarding what to expect for this year's lake levels. Due to amount of rain and rebound of the snow pack this year, the BOR expects it to another full lake level year! As Don stated, "It is going to come to the top!" It looks as if it will remain relatively full throughout the summer and by Labor Day weekend we should only be at 1020' (47' down). By November 1st, only 1000' (67' down)!!! We will get more detailed projections within the next month or so. This also indicates that our CA agriculture should get 100% of their allocations.
      LAKE DEBRIS - Over the next several weeks as we fill up the last 10 feet of the lake, we do expect the usual seasonal debris flows. However, it should be less than what we experienced last year because we had a high lake level last year, which helps to move the debris down to the dam through natural flow. The 3 years of low lake levels before that had allowed more debris to dry out in a much larger area which caused the massive flows and "rafts" that we saw last year. The Forest Service is doing all that they can to mitigate the issue. Keep in mind it is extremely expensive and requires a number of man hours to coral the debris floats.

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 58-60

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Launched 6:15 Paradise, low tide; ran down to Mildred area; tried spook and plopper, only a couple blowups, no hookup. Went to spinnerbait and bladed jig, zero. Tried crank, brother tied on shad pattern, I tried green tomato (red-orange, chartreuse belly)... zero for me, 3 for brother. Ran same rockwall again changing to red. Managed a few barely keepers on the red, brother got 1 more on shad pattern. Went to plastic, 5" wacky and t-rigged stick worms. Picked up a bunch of barely keepers to 1lb, nothing bigger. Was gonna go to 6" but forgot em at home... I've caught 5-7 lbers on 5" so I wasn't too upset about it. Worked a rock wall leading to Columbia Cut and threw my red squarebill... picked up a bunch of 15 to 17" stripers...lots of fun... fulfilled my craving for crankbait hits even though they weren't the bass I was hoping for. Fished Disappointment heading into Paradise and managed only a few more 1-lbers. Dropshot also got us a couple 1 lbers. Somewhat slow day but better than our previous trip, managed only 2 bass in the boat a couple weeks ago. Hoping the crankbait bite turns on for us soon. If it already has for others, that's great!

      Tips: Not qualified to give tips but here's what seemed to work for us this time out:
      Wacky and t-rigged stick worms - 5" junebug; If I hadn't forgotten them at home, I would have used 6".
      Shad and red craw pattern squarebills and speed traps
      Dropshot using MMIII 8-10" above the sinker

Wednesday, March 27th, 2024

  • Sacramento County
    • By

      Water Temp: 56-60

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: As the warmer weather begins to show, it has been hard to think about anything other than springtime fishing. I have been getting my money’s worth from my Ca State Park pass at Folsom Lake over the past few weeks and can say the fishing has been heating up as quickly as the weather. Water temperatures have gone up significantly, with afternoon temperatures hitting between the upper 50’s to low 60’s resulting in the fish following that warmer, shallow water. On my most recent outing, spending only approximately 3 hours on the water, my mom and I were able to put close to 20 fish in the boat. We were targeting flats in 4-12 feet throwing jerk baits, taking advantage of the shallow fish that are looking to feed heavily before the spawn.
      As for the specifics, I don’t believe color was a factor, but our choices were Ayu and Shad. Something to note about throwing a jerk bait is that your setup can make or break your success. I prefer a lighter rod with a parabolic bend, 10lb Sunline Crank FC, and of course my favorite jerk bait with some fresh Owner trebles.
      Folsom Lake has had a poor reputation in recent years, but last year was the best I had ever seen it and it’s on track to repeat or be even better this year. Don’t be surprised to catch a limit of 2.5+lb spots and even a 4-6lb largemouth on trips this spring.
      If you’re wanting to learn more about the fishing on Folsom Lake, I am now a licensed guide and have some open days in the upcoming months. You can find me at @Luke Johns Fishing on Facebook and Instagram or send an email to lukejohnsfishing@gmail.com