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Northern California Lake Fishing Report

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Wednesday, August 19th, 2020

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 78-79

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Launched at Paradise about 6am (high tide) and waited for the sun to rise. Worked the inside rockwall that parallels Disappointment heading toward King's... picked up a lot of dinks and almost-keepers working plastics (Ned, Neko, dropshot, wacky senko). Was curious about the crank bite so threw a chrome/blue floating rat-l-trap and immediately was bit by a 1.5lber. Wondered if this was just a fluke so kept throwing it and caught 2 more along the rip rap wall. Then it stopped. Decided to go back to plastics and decided to try some Yamamoto Mermaids I thought I'd take a chance on. I got bit on every cast but was a mixture of 8-10"ers and a couple of 1lbers, but they were likin' the mermaid (I was using Okeechobee Craw and Wtrmln/Lt Wtrmln Blk Red Lami) ... they like em both. But I gotta say they are fragile baits and as with most Yamamoto baits, 'spensive as heck!! The bait stealers would hack off the claws and even chomp em in half. I didn't care at the time because I just wanted fish on the hook and they were working. Made a run to White Slough and continued with the neds and t-rigged mermaids, catching better keepers but nothing over 2.5lbs. Decent day but can't wait for the lipless crank bite. Maybe Oct/Nov? I don't actually know but that's what most of the tourney guys tell me.

      Tips: Not qualified to give tips but I'll tell you what put fish on the hook for us this day... I looked for pockets in the weed and veggie mats and also threw to the tules and worked em outward into the weed mats. Depth was 3-12 feet. Neds worked early on using Junebug, PB&J, and MMIII then I switched to the mermaids. Started with the Wtrmln/Lt Wtrmln Blk Red Lami color and ran out after catching and bait stealers tearing em up. Switched to Okeechobee Craw color and the bite frequency increased...maybe just got lucky in the area we tried on White Slough. Anyways, they're fish catchers but not sure i wanna spend Yamamoto $$$s ... gonna try the Cowboy next and will have another bag of Mermaids, but likely will stick with SK Rage and Menace.... they work too! Maybe concentrate on punching next time out.

Tuesday, August 18th, 2020

  • Lake County
    • By

      Water Temp: 78.8-81.2

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Ted & I fished the last 6 evenings with mostly good results. We fished south as usual (what can I say, my dock’s by Konocti! Lol.) We keyed on rock structure starting at 11 pm til dawn. The bite for the most part was good. Not like earlier this spring when we were crushing it, but still a solid bite. The only exception was last night where the mini storm earlier in the day suppressed the bite, in my opinion. We caught 10, but the rest of the trips averaged 25. No monsters, our largest were mid 6’s but the average size was nice in the mid 4’s to heavy 5’s. Our limits were 19 lbs to 26.5 lbs averaging 24lbs. They are exceptionally strong right now & catching & fighting them was a blast! Blue & baits with blue flake were the color of choice, we threw some red but they were much less effective. Texas rig, jigs worked the best, cranks & blades were spotty, they’d nail it one night & wouldn’t touch it on another. We caught a few Senko fish deadsticking it but became bored with it so really didn’t dedicate to it. Swim bait was nonexistent as well. There were some popular spots that weren’t producing so move if you don’t get strikes in a reasonable amount of time. We ran into pretty much dead calm conditions most evenings so were able to detect the slightest hits. All in all a good trip!

      Tips: A slow presentation was working for us. Just barely bumping the plastics & jigs, moving them just enough to not get stuck. Even the crank & blade strikes were from moving them slowly. It was pretty humid so take a lot of water & stay hydrated. Throwing to the edges of weed lines off of rocky structure garnered a bunch of strikes. Don’t be afraid to try 20’ & deeper too, we caught some of our larger fish doing just that. I can’t report for the north or day fishing, but there’s a short but brisk frog bite right at dawn. With this heat wave warming the water quickly, adjust your speed accordingly & try different techniques. Stay safe & have fun out there!

      Chris

Friday, August 7th, 2020

Monday, August 3rd, 2020

  • Tuolumne County
    • By

      Water Temp: 81 avg

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished Angel's arm from 6:30 pm - 11:30 pm. Bite was dead until dusk when I picked up a 1.5-2.0 lb fish on a jig. After dark, got 2 more on a jig.1-1.5 lbs. I got no bites on any other lure. Bite died about 2 hours after dark. Maybe Mondays are a bad day to go since a guide (drives ChampioN) said there was maybe 500 boats on the lake the day before (Sunday). Or, maybe the fishing is just lousy or maybe I'm not fishing in the right places.

      Tips: Maybe dont fish Angel's arm;)

Tuesday, July 28th, 2020

  • Napa County
    • By

      Water Temp: 78 to 80

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fishing with Sid
      Mon 2020-07-27 22:38
      The Lake Berryessa News
      This past week NorthBay Hospice & Bereavement honored Alfonso and his family at Steele Park. Alfonso's wish was a day spent fishing at the lake and enjoying time with his family. I was honored to take members of his family out fishing and to spend the day with them (see photos). I went out with Bob and he landed some nice bass (see photo). The fishing was off during the day with no signs of activity at all till late evening when the sun started to set and the surface water started to cool down and then the action started. We did much better then the day time. Hopefully the day bite will pick up.
      'til next time...……………………………………..good fishing!!!
      If you have any questions or stories yo would like to share or are interested in booking a guided fishing trip please email me at bestguide@hotmail.com or call me at 650-583-3333.
      Thanks,
      Sid

      Tips: it was an honor on my part to grant a mans last wishes died 2 days later they told me he was happy to his last breath and never stopped talking about his fish,

Saturday, July 25th, 2020

  • Napa County
    • By

      Water Temp: 74-76

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Hit Henny with my buddy Bruce for early am top h2o bite with poppers, frog and buzz baits for a few good blow ups. Spinner baits and a few honey holes caught a couple more. Bruce caught the better fish all day and I had the numbers. Switched to jigs and had lots of hits, but they were tough to catch. Bruce got more in the boat than me, including the bass of the day 5.11lb. It was overcast for the first 3 1/2 hours on the lake with a slight breeze. Made for good fishing.

Monday, July 20th, 2020

  • Tuolumne County
    • By

      Water Temp: 80-84

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: We got on the water right at dawn and fished until about 1 PM. Went with topwater right away and got a few dinks on a popper. The zara spook and whopper popper did not produce. Then we ran crank baits some and got nothing. Drop shots with oxblood roboworms produced small ones. We finally got into a few keepers to 2 points with jigs worked slowly around wood. Overall a very slow day.

Thursday, July 16th, 2020

    • By

      Water Temp: 78

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Catching spots on various drop shot worms fishing the heat of the day. Fishing underwater shade, off of island tops on the other side of the sun, shaded side. Been taking large mouths on a buzz bait as soon as I can find some decent shade lines in the backs of creeks at the end of the day. just put the Minkota on 30 keep the pedal down and burn the shade line. Most of the largemouths are coming out of the pockets small spots are on the points.

      Tips: In the heat fish whatever shade you can find.

  • Amador County
    • By

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Small mouth are hitting drop shot on island tops. Have not been able to get any reaction bites in this 95 degree plus heat. Catching fish from 10-40’.

Monday, July 13th, 2020

  • Lake County
    • By

      Water Temp: 76.2

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Just a quick follow up, Matt Guyot & I went out tonite & the wind picked up a bit this evening. It came from the north & the reaction bite went south with it! For Us, only the jig & Texas rig worked. There were definite lulls in the action & we worked fairly hard for the fish we caught. The numbers were still decent at 32 fish but the size was down except for the 7 lb 14 oz toad Matt caught for his new personal best. Congrats Matt! We fished south & they weren’t schooled up as much as they have been for the last two days. The jig worked best with a double wide trailer with a 1/2” cut off the top, Texas was dbl wide & brush hogs with a very slow presentation. Best 5 went a shade over 24 lbs. same colors as previous report.

      Just another quick follow up: went out last night & the wind was down. Fishing was pretty much the same as Sun night except the reaction bite was back on. Blades were working well as was the crankbait. Best five went a shade over 22 lbs & other than the reaction bite, the pattern was the same. Water temp came up a degree to 77.2

      Tips: Slow was the key & moving around, grinding it out. We stayed south the whole time & hit a few more spots than before. Take your time & enjoy the moment! We’ll get out there again tonite, in the meantime stay safe & have fun!

Sunday, July 12th, 2020

  • Lake County
    • By

      Water Temp: 76.8

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: The bite’s still doing well! Manny Frias & I have been out for the past few nights with great #’s of fish! There’s been a great reaction bite with both cranks & blades. The jig’s still doing well, the Texas rig with brush hogs were producing a lot of hits as & there’s also a decent Senko bite! We averaged over 45 fish/ night with our biggest being 6 lbs 9 oz. It was nice to see the return of a decent Senko bite. Our limits were a little over 24 lbs on Friday night & 28 lbs 4 oz on Saturday night. Colors were blues with some red & green flakes. I also got on a little nostalgia kick & threw an old 55 year old Bomber Water Dog & a football jig with an Uncle Josh pork trailer from my days fishing with my Dad when I was a kid & nailed a few with each! We fished south on rocky structure & they were all over the water column. They were very aggressive when they hit, often time pounding the baits!

      Tips: They seemed to like a slow presentation with the plastics & a fairly fast presentation with the reaction baits. We got quite a few hits running baits back to the boat! They seemed to be schooled up as we caught several fish on each spot. Greens & browns with a multitude of flake color seemed to work best, the more vibrant, the better! They are relating to structure, we didn’t fish any docks because we didn’t have to! We didn’t catch any huge beasts but most of our fish were in the 3-5 lb range with an occasional 6lber. Also, if you stay until light breaks, you will get to see a comet in the NE sky just as it starts to break light! Amazing sight to see! Have fun & be safe! We will be going out for a few more nights & I’ll report again if anything changes!

    • By

      Water Temp: 75 in am

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished yesterday am .No ones doing any reports so here goes. Normally fish during the week . There was a lot of boats out.Algae blooms are bad in some areas but there is clear water to fish just have to move around.
      If i was to fish a tourny right now i would be throwing a frog a buzzbait and a jig. Only 3 rods i needed yesterday. I have been catching chatterbait fish north but stayed south.
      Had about 17 pounds on topwater.
      fished till about 11 am.and caught 13-15 fish to 4 lbs.

Friday, July 10th, 2020

  • Napa County
    • By

      Water Temp: 76 to 778

      Report: Fishing during the day during a full moon was challenging. I went out with Gary who wanted to fish for crappie. Needless to say it was not an easy task!

      We ended up catching a few nice bass. Next morning I took Frank and his two sons out with almost the same results as the day before. this pattern continued through with Mike, Dusty, Tim, and David. When I went out in the evening with Steve we ended up with two limits of five each the biggest bass was about four pounds. Since the fishing was better in the evening that's when I went out for the next few nights and landed limits each time. Fishing in the evening was not only more productive but cooler as well.

      t'll next time...………………………………………………………………………………….good fishing!!!




      If you have any questions or stories you would like to share or are interested in booking a guided fishing trip please email me at besstguide@hotmail.com or call me at 650-583-3333.




      Thanks,

      Sid

      Tips: keep trying until you find something that works;what worked for me was to fish while the full moon was out

Friday, July 3rd, 2020

  • Solano County
    • By

      Report: by HappyDogBassFishing » Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:37 pm

      Here is my last week of June fishing report. Overall the fishing was fun even though I did not find tournament winning sized fish. I was able to put a few limits around 15 or 16 pounds throwing the usual stuff: walking baits, buzzbaits, bladed jigs, punching, etc. Once in a while I found them school up and could pick off a few in the same spot. So fishing fast until the bites came and then staying on them paid off.

Thursday, July 2nd, 2020

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 72 to 76

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: I fished the Central Delta area yesterday and caught 36 bass. Our best five might have gone 7 pounds. Yes! Out of 36 bass, plus the 24 my partner caught, about 90 percent were under 12 inches. We fished rip-rap as well as tullie islands and points, and whatever. No hits on the frog but I did catch one on a wopper plopper, nothing on a swim jig, and two or three on a chatterbait, and a few on a drop shot. Everything else was on the good old senko. My best fish was 3.68 pounds and there were maybe five more that were between 12 and 13 inches. It seemed a little unusual with that many dinks but we still had a good time because of all the action.

Tuesday, June 30th, 2020

  • Sonoma County
    • By

      Water Temp: unknown

      Report: Caught 10 bass
      1 on whopper plopper
      1 on frog
      1 on senko drop shot
      7 on Bill Dance crawdad crankbait

      Tips: Got on the water in my belly boat at 6:00 am. Nice day. Calm.

      Fish the frog really tight against bank. Use it to spot fish that spook.

      Crankbait deep in the middle

Friday, June 26th, 2020

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 74-76

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched Paradise @545am, first time back on the delta since the "stay home" thing. Decided to just start fishing the tules along Disappointment... picked up a few almost keepers to 1 pounders on dropshot, senko-type, ned, and a couple blow-ups but no hookup on buzzbait...nothing on the squarebills til we ran into lots of stripers (shakers) boiling every couple hundred yards. Fun gettin' bit on the cranks with a lot of 17"ers but no keeper stripers. Headed down to the San Joaquin / Tinsley, picked up a few more stripers and a few 1 and 2 lbers on squarebill, senko-type sticks, and neds. Moved out to the main river and fished the banks of the San Joaquin picking up a few more 1 lbers on same variety of baits. Since it was Friday, wanted to beat the traffic so moved back up and fished Disappointment in various spots leading back to Paradise. Lost a nice one, don't have a clue on size/weight, but it bit my white jackhammer chatterbait and then the #$%^&ing FG knot came undone...same leader I had caught several on the cranks. Found the jackhammer in about 5ft on a tule point so was able to get it back. I'm done with FG... going back to Alberto, Albright, and Double Uni knots for joining my leaders but to perfectly honest, gonna do away with fluoro leaders as I never had problems using straight braid prior to trying leaders...only reason I went to leaders is because everyone kept saying I ought to. Well I found no difference except losing a few fish and if it was my joining knot on the FG, then fine, I admit it so I'll just eliminate that single point of failure by not using an FG anymore...never had failure on double-uni, albright, or alberto.

      Tips: Not qualified to offer tips but plastics on dropshot, wacky, ned, and neko, squarebills using stop and go retrieve (lots of hits on the pause), and a few on swim senkos worked for us in 5-12 ft water.

Thursday, June 25th, 2020

  • Sacramento County
    • By

      Water Temp: 80

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Went out to Folsom today and started off really slow. Caught a bluegill on a drop shot and that was the only action until about 10am when the bite finally picked up. Finally found about 10 fish up to 3 pounds on rocky points in 16-25 ft throwing a brown and orange 1/2 oz jig and a drop shot with a hologram shad 4 inch Robo Worm. The only was to get these fish to bite was to drag it really really slow after spotting them on my electronics. Tried Whopper ploppers, flukes, swimbaits, cranks and nothing. It's definitely a tough bite but if you stick with it and fish slow you can manage to get a few.

      Tips: Fish were really hugging the bottom so bottom baits worked best.

Sunday, June 21st, 2020

  • Shasta County
    • By

      Water Temp: 71-75

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Whew. Spent the past week up at Shasta with the lady and had a blast. I managed to get out on the lake a few times and the bite was wide open. I spent most of the time fishing up the McCloud arm and could pretty much catch em on whatever I threw. Early mornings and late evenings topwater bite was wide open. A lot of cookie cutter 1-2lb spots but mixed in were solid 2-4 lb spots and ended up getting my biggest shasta spot (4lbs) and largemouth a touch over 5lbs on a spook. This morning I got out from 5am-10:30am and boated roughly 85 fish; the majority on a spook and whopper plopper. Fast and erratic with the spook with the occasional pause seemed to be the pace they wanted.

      Tips: Switched out the back treble on my spook to one with a feather, seemed to get more bites. Also burning a fluke nose hooked produced some wild bites as well; and I mean burning that thing as fast as your reel will let you

Wednesday, June 17th, 2020

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 69 to 71

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Buddy Doug and I planned a trip to the Delta today. He was at my house about 5:15 AM and we discussed "go or not go" because of the wind but we decided to go. Glad we did. Wind was a bitch and I lost my shade giving large-brim hat, but Doug got his personal best at 6 1/2 lbs and 22 inches, while I got two that were right at 4 lbs. There were just a few other fish but our best five would have been near 16 lbs. I threw a lot of different baits but Senkos saved the day for us. I know the heading shows Almaden Lake but I did not see the Delta listed at all.

      Tips: Most bites came from tule clumps and under irregation pipes. Plain rip-rap produced very few bites.