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Northern California Lake Fishing Report

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Tuesday, November 21st, 2000

  • Lake County
    • By

      Water Temp: 50

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: I ished Clear Lake with clients Fri, Sat, and Mon. - all were late aternoon-night trips. I really hope my ingers thaw out soon - I am typing slowly! Friday started out good with me catching a 3 1/2 on a Rodstrainer jig by the metal wall near Rattlesnake Island, by hwy 20. Next stop was a rocky area a little north, where a client got one nearly 4 lbs on the same jig. Ater dinner, we worked rocky areas at the south end. One o the clients got his personal best, a nice 6-7 on a jumbo brush hog. Five minutes later, other client hooks a monster. I'm standing, ready with the net or what seems like ages, and the next thing I hear is "oh no"! That is always a rough time or me, when a client loses a huge bass. I know how excited they would be i they landed it. Anyway, he caught 3, other client 2, and me,1. Sat. night, one client and I landed 10 bass, with the biggest at 7-10. Our 5 best was 25 1/2 lbs. Sat. night the atmosphere was drier and slightly warmer, I mean, slightly less cold!! The ish were more aggressive, and a ew o them actually struck hard. We caught all our ish on Power Hogs and brush hogs, except the 7-10, which I caught on a Weapon Jig. Again we ished rocky areas with deep water access. Mon aternoon-night provided the weather I had been waiting or - some clouds and even less cold. Fishing should break open, right? Wrong! We only got 6 or 7 bites the whole trip. However, we were looking or quality, and we got it - 4 bass that weighed 4-10, 7-0, 7-1, and 7-6, or a little over 26 lbs. I could hot believe how dead the lake was, maybe because it was dead calm. The previous nights when we had so many bites, there was a slight breeze, which made a slight chop on the water, causing the ish to move shallower. We caught a lot o shallow ish on those night, but Mon night we were orced to try to get the deep ish to bite, and a ew did. They were caught in 20 to 30 eet o water on Weapon jigs. The brush hog bite was dead.
      City: Yuba City

      Tips: Always have a rog rigged with a jig, day or night. But have other rods rigged with other baits, and switch o oten. Bass change their preerences, even in the winter. That act was really driven home to me during those three trips. Also, shaking our worms and jigs worked well on Sat, but did not work on Mon. They just wanted the bait dragged very slowly. 'Tis the season or pressure bites, even when jig ishing.

  • Mariposa County
    • By

      Water Temp: low 50's

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Mid-Cal Bass will hold an open team tournament on november 26th at Lake McClure barretts cove north ramp.Entry ees are $50.00 per team with a $10.00 big ish option.Entries must be recieved by november 22nd or a $10.00 late ee will be charged at the lake. or more ino call (209)664-1286
      City: Denair

      Tips: please take good care o your ish, especially this time o year.Most ish must be stuck prior to putting in your live well.Carry a hypo needle in your tackle box. You can get one at your local arm supply store, a 16 gauge by 1 1/2 inch work well.Remember ,just because you practice catch and release doesn't mean that ish will live the next day, you must take that extra step i you want to preserve our ish population.

Monday, November 20th, 2000

  • Santa Clara County
    • By

      Water Temp: ???

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: First time on the lake in sometime. Caught 11 fish on Spoons, swimbaits and dropshot rigs. Bite was good once you find them. The fish are spread out all over the lake but were better concentrated on the main lake points. Needed some crayfish to catch the toads I was seeing on the graph, but I'm not a live bait kind of guy. Fish I caught were from a 1 1/2 - 3 pounds and were looking pretty fat. Middle of the lake has fish busting shad but they are hard to stay with and move before you can set up on them. Don't recommend you waisting time on them unless they are really killing them and not moving to fast. Fish were on the bank and down to 30-36' in good numbers. Deeper than that and the numbers of them together were more sparse. Fished from 11AM to 4:30PM. Bite got better as the sun got lower. I'm sure the early AM would be good too.
      City: Mountain View

    • By

      Water Temp: ???

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: First time on the lake in sometime. Caught 11 fish on Spoons, swimbaits and dropshot rigs. Bite was good once you find them. The fish are spread out all over the lake but were better concentrated on the main lake points. Needed some crayfish to catch the toads I was seeing on the graph, but I'm not a live bait kind of guy. Fish I caught were from a 1 1/2 - 3 pounds and were looking pretty fat. Middle of the lake has fish busting shad but they are hard to stay with and move before you can set up on them. Don't recommend you waisting time on them unless they are really killing them and not moving to fast. Fish were on the bank and down to 30-36' in good numbers. Deeper than that and the numbers of them together were more sparse. Fished from 11AM to 4:30PM. Bite got better as the sun got lower. I'm sure the early AM would be good too.
      City: Mountain View

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 50's

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished until 2 pm, had to leave biting fish. Morning bite was O.K. Caught most of fish on jigs with dropoffs and shelves in moving water. Just let jig slip into dropoffs and bites were pressure bites. Caught a few Senko fish in 6 to 10 feet of water with slow current mid morning. Lunch time the bite picked up and the fish were slamming the jig pretty hard. Numbers of fish to 3 lbs.
      City: racy

      Tips: All fish were in current and found on ledges, no shallow flip bite for me on structure. Water was clear for the Delta so use stealth mode.

Saturday, November 18th, 2000

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 50-52

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished my last tournement of the year out of Ladds. There were alot of boats on the water that morning due to the fact that there were a couple of club tournements going out of there also. My partner and I ran to our first stop up town a ways and tried to get the flip fish I had going but to no avail. We run to our crankbait water which overall has been our most consistant bite and pulled seven fish in five passes down this bank with five being keepers between 1 1/4 to 2 3/4 Lbs.We caught those fish on red med. crankbaits, When the tide got right we made our run to our primary water were my partner caught a 4.4 on a shad colored model A bomber, culled out a couple more fish and at 11:45 we were done. We weighed in 16 3/4 and took third.
      City: Galt

      Tips: Fish would not touch a RattleTrap for us with the water temp. dropping the way it did, we had to crank SLOWWWW and I mean slow! The Crankbait had to be crawled through the rocks and the bite was VERY soft, if you set the hook you missed the fish, you had to let the fish load the rod and then reel set them. We used red crankbaits for all our fish exept my partners big fish. Good luck and God bless!!

Thursday, November 16th, 2000

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: ?

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: this wind sure does blow!
      City: concord

      Tips: try what you think works. then try what you think doesn't.

Monday, November 13th, 2000

  • Napa County
    • By

      Water Temp: 57'-59'

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished ABA yesterday out of Putah Creek. Very cold at blast off, but sun came out and warmed things up a bit. We started in the Vineyards carolina rigging baby brush hogs, cranking and ripping. We saw 6-8 fish caught near us early, how frustrating.We got our first keeper at 9am. Ended up with 8 keepers for the day, good enough for 9.95 lbs(best five) and 9th place.(72 boats in all).I caught four keepers spitshotting a 4" weenie, my partner got his 4 with the brush hog. I heard that two teams had 17 lbs,+.(what were they doing?)
      City: San Leandro

      Tips: Be persistent, throw what you believe in. Downsize if you must when the cold snap hits.

  • Merced County
    • By

      Water Temp: n/a

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: A riend and I ished the orebay near the 152 bridge in the aternoon. The water was very clear, I think due to the release o water rom San Luis. We had planned on kick boating, but it was too windy. Ended up bait ishing or a while, then wading and casting lures. We ished the bridge pilings or black bass with no hits, then tried the area outside the bouys or stripers. We caught three small stripers on hair raisers and lies.
      City: Mountain View

      Tips: Small rattle traps, hair raisers, or lies. The baitish are generally small this year, so use small lures. The ishing is slow now.

Sunday, November 12th, 2000

  • Napa County
    • By

      Water Temp: 57-58

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: fished a club tourney out of spanish flat saturday .. fished in the narrows.. caught only one keeper..only one limit caught and won tourney at 8 pounds...sunday fished aba of out putah creek . fished up in top of putah creek and caught a limit of five fish drop shotting withes "T" worms for 9.96 lbs. we finished tenth and had third big fish at only 3.27 big fish was 7 + second at 6+ caught all fish between 4 and 12 feet . winner caught fish including bif fish cranking fat free shad second i believe caught all their fish 20-40 ft deep on worms. i might have the methods of first and second backwards but those were to top two methods.. and MAN WAS IT COLD !!!!!!!!!!1
      City: sunnyvale

      Tips: find fish on electronics and stick with drop shotting it seem to be the ticket for us anyway and dress warm!!!!!

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 52-55

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished Frank's Tract and South Delta today. Looked for stripers for a couple of hours with no luck so went looking for blackies. Bite was a bit tougher than it has been, but did get 4 keepers from 1.5 to 3 pounds. All fish came on crank baits 3 on shad pattern and the 3# on a craw Bomber 6A. All fish were in the current, covered a lot of water.
      City: Brentwood

      Tips: Making contact with bottom seemed to make a difference today.

  • Alameda County
    • By

      Water Temp: 65

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Bass slow but starting to pick up as water temps cool. Cranking luckycrat and yozuri lipless iretiger in early morning seeing some action rom 1 to 2 lb range around Alder point and coots landing. look or the water level to stableize as ebmud awaits this comming winter rains
      City: Castro Valley

      Tips: learn the lake and pay your dues this lake will oer you many bass in the 5-8 lb range i your lucky

  • Lake County
    • By

      Water Temp: 50-53

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Bummer! I knew the odds o great trips were slim with this major cold ront coming, and the beginning o our Friday trip didn't help when I lost a 9 to 11 lb bass at the second spot we ished, about 6:45 am. On a whim, I threw a black/red Tennessee Killer crankbait near some rocks, and this ish slammed it. I saw the WHOLE ish! I had her on or about 15 seconds, then she spit it. I remembered losing some big ish at Amador on that bait - so, I don't know i it is a problem with the lure, the hooks, or the isherman. Maybe the latter!! I havn't used that style crank or years. Anyway, bummer!!! Actually, my client was new to bass ishing and really picked up jig ishing in a hurry, so the day got better and better as he kept hooking quality bass to 4 1/4 lbs. He lost a big ish that took a Rodstrainer jig in 20 eet o water, and several others. His best our weighed 14 lbs! A beautiul aternoon with wonderul cloud ormations and a lat lake, along with a happy client, helped me get over the loss o Mrs. Toad (sort o). We ished too many areas to mention, but we concentrated on rock walls, ledges, and docks with a little rock around them. Funny, as it warmed up (that's a joke) in the aternoon, the bite slowed or us. We ished Shag Rock or an hour without a bite. Should have changed baits, but was too stubborn to switch. Just one more cast I said. Sometimes that attitude works, and sometimes it doesn't!! It didn't.Saturday night truely was an experience or the brave (and stupid!!). My clients were cool - and I mean, about midnight - very COOL!!!!! The three o us must have looked like terrorists the way we were dressed. They really handled the cold weather well - it was about 28 degrees when we quit. They were thinking that we wouldn't get bit because o the post-ront conditions, clear skies, and a moon that is too bright in the winter. But we did get bit, about 20 times at least. They were using 3 dierent kinds o 6 to 8 inch worms, and were getting most o the bites. I stuck with a Weapon jig and got the big ish - only 5-2, but got ew bites. The bass would bite, but not really take the bait, and as a result, we lost about 3/4 o the ish we hooked. Very rustrating. We ended the trip with one client breaking o a ish on 17 lb test, and I dumped one about 6 or 7 lbs at the boat. It is hard to understand how those things happen sometimes, but they do. We could have had a great trip ish-wise, but it wasn't meant to be. Besides that, we had a great time inventing new ways to stay warm, and clients loved learning to ish "o-shore", which they had never done beore. We hit a little known rockpile on the hwy 20 side o the Rattlesnake arm and stuck the two I mentioned we lost, lost another good ish, and I missed a jig hit. We were just shaking our heads as to how we could have lost all o them. Clients were really shaking the brass 'n glass Texas rigged worms, then letting them settle on the bottom. This works real well at night as the water gets cold - and they did this with success the whole trip, at least as ar as bites goes. Black/chartreuse and junebug were the top colors. I think we wound up with only 5 or 6 bass in the boat - actually good or the conditions, but not good or airly good ish activity. Maybe it was so cold that our hooksets were in slow motion - ah, that's it!!
      City: Yuba City

      Tips: Just when you think that the jig bite rules, the worm bite turns on, day and night. As the winter approaches early this year, try to establish whether the bass preer a jig or some size, type, and presentation o a worm. Many large bass at Clear Lake are caught in the winter on 4 inch black worms, such as a ringworm, or Berkley Pulse Worm. As I mentioned, I am guilty o occasionally sticking with a jig too long, since it is my major conidence bait, especially in cold water. And don't orget your tube baits - sometimes they will catch bass when nothing else will. Ask Gary Klein!!

Saturday, November 11th, 2000

  • Amador County
    • By

      Water Temp: 62

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Is there any bass here? I couldn't catch one. Trout ishing was better, I got 6 trolling the main lake near the dam. Had to quit early because me and my son were reezingg to death out there.
      City: sac

      Tips: bring lots o warm clothes and gloves. trout ishing was good

  • Napa County
    • By

      Water Temp: 58

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished from 6am until 2pm today outta Markley Cove. Started off near the dam tossing crankbaits/jerkbaits. Had one fish 2lb range follow crank to boat. Otherwise nothing happening. Spent the rest of the day fishing the narrows, with good success.. Boated 15 fish total, largest was a 2.5 spot. Three largemouth and the rest were spots. Fish came from 15 - 35 feet. Caught all fish on shad colored plastics on either dropshot or split shot.

      Tips: Fish steep drop offs..Use light line (6lb) and fish slow.

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 55

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished a small club tourney out of Ladds. Bite was tough, caught 4 keepers early on then didnt get bit again until around noon when we picked up 2 more. Finally got the 7th fish at 1:00. Caught another keeper 5 minutes before wiegh in and were able to cull a 13"er. All told caught 8 keepers to almost 3# and 4 short fish. All but 2 on bombers and speed traps. Weighed 11 pounds and took 1st plus 2nd big fish. No other boats had limits.
      City: Los Banos

    • By

      Water Temp: AROUND 60'S

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: FISH THE RIVER ALOTE OF SMALL FISH. THAN LIKE MAGIC CAME ACCROSS A ROCK PILE IN FINEGOLD AND STOCK 4 NICE FISH 2-2# 1-4# AND 1-1/2# ALL ON CRANKS.
      City: FRESNO

      Tips: WITH THE WEATHER THE WAY IT IS JUST TRY EVERTHING UNTIL YOU FIND WHAT THEY WANT.

  • Lake County
    • By

      Water Temp: 50-55

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished a club tourney (Redwood Empire Bass) Saturday. The bite was a little o, but everyone caught ish. There were 3 ish over 8 lbs and several in the 5-6 lb range. Winning weight was over 21 lbs. Personally, I landed 3 ish or 11.5 lbs, largest 6.5 lbs. My parner also landed 3 or 11.9 lbs. We spent most o the day on the south end throwing crank baits and rip baits around drop-os and rocks.
      City: Rohnert Park

      Tips: When cranking, be sure to be dragging the bottom. Find bait ish and throw rattle traps or rip baits.

  • Sacramento County
    • By

      Water Temp: 58-60

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Went out at noon and came in at our. Caught a limit(8 and a hal pounds) dragging hal ounce jigs (brown and purple) in about 30-35 eet o water. Bite was sot, just a little pressure. The ish were mostly on points and some in creek channels. 4 ish in the north ork and 1 in the south. To windy to ish main lake, at leats or me. A ew bites on the granite boulders but mostly on the regualr size rocks. Good luck!!!

      Tips: SLOW!!!!!

  • Mariposa County
    • By

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: FISHED FROM 6 AM TO 1 PM IN THE RIVER CHANNEL JUST ABOVE HORSESHOE. CAUGHT SEVEN FISH BUT ONLY THREE WERE OVER 12".TWO 15" & ONE 13". NO TAKERS ON CRANKS OR SPOONING. ALL FISH CAME SPLIT SHOTTING 4" GREEN WEENIE LEECHES W/RED & GREEN FLAKE. ALL FISH CAUGHT FROM 5' TO 25'. COLD & WINDY.
      City: DELHI