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Northern California Lake Fishing Report

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Thursday, November 14th, 2019

  • Lake County
    • By

      Water Temp: 60.1

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Had to go check the house after the latest power outage & had a chance to hit the lake Tuesday night. After throwing everything but the kitchen sink ( thought about throwing that too! Lol), I figured out that they were hitting crankbaits! I threw the 6th Sense C15 & C20 in a shad pattern & when they hit it, they crushed it! They would not touch any of the other usual suspects, but this was a small sample size! Wish I had more info, but that’s all folks! Nothing really big, best 5 went around 18 lbs. I fished south in Konocti.

      Tips: They were deeper in the 15-23 ft range. I was cranking rocky structure and humps. I would reel down fast to get to he structure, then slow down to bump it along. Usually half way to the boat, wham! If you get bit in an area, fan cast around, there were multiple bites in an area. Have fun & be safe!

Wednesday, November 13th, 2019

  • Napa County
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      Water Temp: 61-64

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: I guided two older gentlemen at Berryessa on Thursday. We found the fishing - "dead calm without a hint of a breeze." Normal for Berry lately! Finally some clouds the next day. I don't say much about my clients, respecting privacy. But one of them the most senior I have ever guided -- 90 +
      and could cast like he was mid 20's - no kidding!!! And he set the table, catching a keeper bass on his first cast!! I have now "seen it all" as a 36 yr guide!! We moved around the lake quite a bit and found the very clear water everywhere. Really couldn't find any big schools of bait fish, though we only went up to mid-lake. We wound up with several nice bass of all three species. Biggest was 2 3/4 lbs. We were drop-shotting Robo worms and dart heading Yamamoto grubs. Best 5 only about 10 pounds.

      Tips: Whatever tip I have, yours is probably better. We did find a lot of bass in the wood on the east side and did well in the afternoon. Maybe should have tried topwater there in the early morning!

Wednesday, November 6th, 2019

  • Sacramento County
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      Water Temp: 65

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: I only fished for a few hours (2 pm - 5 pm). I figured I should try offshore structure today, so I went to (3) of my favorite underwater humps but didn't graph a large concentration of fish. On my 4th spot, I did see several fish along with baitfish and picked up a 2# smallmouth on a Carolina rigged grub in less than 8' of water. That was it - another slow day on Folsom.

Sunday, November 3rd, 2019

  • Butte County
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      Report: by Pat » Sun Nov 03, 2019 4:46 pm

      Yes, the fishing has been pretty good. Target bait fish, if you don't see bait on your graph, keep moving. Not saying you won't catch any if you don't see bait, but it definitely improves your chances. We have been catching fish from right on the bank out to about 30 feet. Water has been falling about a foot a day.

    • By

      Report: From San Pablo Reservoir

      SAN PABLO RESERVOIR FISH REPORT
      11-3-19
      We had a 49-inch sturgeon caught on 11-1-19 by Bill Robinson what a way to end the season. The trout fishing is starting to pick-up with the cooler weather. This is the last week to fish the reservoir as we are closed as of 11-11-19 so better come out by Sunday. In honor of Veterans Day we will be giving all Veterans a discount on boat rentals on Sunday the 10th.
      Lake Conditions
      Lake Level 296.6
      Surface Temp 65 degrees
      Plants Rumor has it that DFW planted the week of the 26th. I can not confirm that they if they did or not.

      Park Information
      Bill Robinson of Berkeley caught a 49-inch Sturgeon on 11-1-19.
      Bruno Zambonin of San Francisco and Friend caught 7 trout fishing in various locations from a boat on 11-1-19. (They were camera shy no picture taken.)
      Lily Folan of Vacaville caught a trout using power-bait on 11-2-19.
      Marquis Mercado and friend of Vallejo caught 3 trout the stringer weighing 8 lbs. The largest trout 3 lbs at the rock-wall on 11-2-19.

Thursday, October 31st, 2019

  • Lake County
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      Report: by On The Water Guide Service » Thu Oct 31, 2019 10:32 am

      Had a special celebrity guest client out this past week and let me tell you this guy could fish. The go to lure for me has still been the LV500 in any of the bait fish colors. I have primarily been using the Pearl shad and Ghost minnow colors. The key to being successful with this lure is to experiment with the retrieve until you find out how they want it that particular day. For example when I am fishing the shallow water in Lakeport, I have been doing well just burning it in over the tops of the submerged weed beds. Fishing the lure in deeper water I have been doing well with a yo-yo style retrieve sweeping the rod to the side and taking up the slack as the lure falls back down. Another productive lure right now is the Pointer100 suspending jerkbait in a baitfish color. I also recommend experimenting with your retrieve with this lure until you get the right cadence they want that day. A good rule of thumb is the colder the water gets, the longer the pause in between jerks. Headwalls and boat ramps are good places to target this time of year because the bass will school up and coral the baitfish against them and feed often. I have seen a mixed bag of baitfish in different areas of the lake. Some areas have big schools of threadfin shad while other areas have silverside minnows and some areas have lot's of juvenile crappie. The bass are really getting their teeth as they often do this time of year.

      There is still an awesome jig bite mid lake and South right now. Brown/orange, brown/purple, or just plain old brown have been working really well in 5 to 25 feet. I have been doing well dragging a 1/2oz jig on a rocky bottom with a Beaver trailer and a touch of Smelly Jelly XXX crawfish. Another hot bait right now is the Zman Fatty Z Ned rig in the green pumpkin color as well as dropshoting a 6" worm with a short leader close to the bottom. Over all I would rate the fishing as good right now with water temps ranging from the high 50's in the morning hours and low 60's by the afternoon.

      The water level is currently holding at 2.96 on the Rumsey Gauge which is actually pretty decent for this time of year and no measurable rain yet. Both ends of the lake are fishing well but I do believe the deep water bite is more consistent. The water clarity is similar all around the lake with about a foot and a half visibility.

      It sure is nice having the power turned back on after 4 days of darkness. Thoughts and prayers going out for anyone affected by the Wildfires here in California. Everyone have a safe and fun Halloween this year and we will see you all out on the water.
      Good fishing, Troy Bellah

Monday, October 28th, 2019

  • Sacramento County
    • By

      Water Temp: 63

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: With power out and no school, two boats from our high school fishing team went fishing. I was glad to get our faculty advisor out with me. We started in south fork first thing about 7 AM. In the first hour the two boats netted 6 keepers on worms and jigs. Nothing big but solid keepers. Most were shallow. Then one boat went further up the south fork and got two more including a 4. The other boat went up north fork to and could not buy a bite when the sun was high on the lake. We could see large schools of bait fish on the electronics and fish coming up from deep to hammer them. But we could not get bit until the sun got lower creating shadow lines, we could cast to for keepers. We got a few more there including two largemouth and a small mouth. Then cocktail time was closing in so we headed home.

      Tips: Never fished Folsom in the fall so no tips except jigs and worms.

Friday, October 25th, 2019

  • Solano County
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      Water Temp: 61.5

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Put out of Big Break at 10AM yesterday with Jimmy and the Shadow but couldn't buy a striped bass. Same thing happened last Sunday at 7AM. Water was like a sheet of ice with little to no wind. Threw reaction baits and trolled for about an hour with nothing on the radar. After 90 minutes of striped bass fishing switched over to fishing for Large Mouth Bass in Dutch, incoming tide, using a drop shot rig and we caught about 11 LMB ranging in size from dink to 3 pounds. Weather was beautiful. Off the water at 3PM. Where the heck are the striped bass?
      DogOn

      Tips: Drop shot with green pumpkin trick worm, 10 inches of line to the 1/4 ounce sinker worked really well.

Sunday, October 20th, 2019

  • Napa County
    • By

      Water Temp: 63-67 F

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Got out to the lake this past Sunday hadn't fished up there in months was hoping the fall feed would be on! Water temps were still a little high but definitely some packs of schooling fish chasing bait. Started off the day on an off-shore hump in about 15-25' of water dragging a small underspin and caught a few dinks then decided to get on the big motor and idle around and do some graphing.

      Found a pretty large school of largemouth out in about 45-55' and went to work spooning. Caught about 8-9 largemouth (up to 3lbs) out of there in rapid succession then before I knew it they were gone and I couldn't get on top of them again in the general vicinity.

      By this time it was about noon and it was starting to warm up so I decided to try and start running some bank and fishing shallow with a weightless fluke. Caught a couple small ones here and there not too much action though.

      Went over to the vineyards and that seemed to be the juice. Was fishing pretty shallow 3-6 feet fishing fluke pretty fast and erratic. Caught some more largies up to about 2.75 lbs. Had one big mama come out from under a half submerged bush but she wouldn't eat it. Circled back to the same bush about 15 minutes later with a popper and she blasted it. Some schools of bass running/busting on bait through the Vineyards also were easy to pick off if you could get your bait to them

      Overall a solid day, Was catching fish in 3' down to 50'. They seem to be all over the place still.

      Tips: Most of the bait i was seeing was micro in size, .5"-1" in size.

Friday, October 18th, 2019

  • Yuba County
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      Water Temp: 64.5-65.5

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Conditions: Started out cloudy with a light drizzle, air temp around 60. The day cleared up, with sunny skies and highs in the low 70s.
      Hit Bullards on Thursday with a friend of mine. Numbers were great, size was not. We caught over 30 spots, all in the 10-14 inch range. Obviously not the caliber fish we were looking for, but a fun day all the same. The day started way up the river on channel swings. We called up a couple on a Lucky Craft Sammy 115 in Ghost Minnow, then caught several from a school off a small secondary point. These fish were suspended 40-45 feet deep in 50 feet of water, and we vertically fished a 4 in Morning Dawn Spot Sticker drop shot worm and a 7/8 oz War Eagle jigging spoon in Blue Herring to catch 4-5. As the day went on, we worked our way down the lake, alternating some longer points with channel swings and pockets. We picked up several on a Jackal Rerange 115 in HL Silver Shad and continued to catch fish on the dropshot as we marked them on the electronics. Fish seem to be a little scattered in small wolf packs of 3-5, but all more than willing to eat. Of course Bullards doesn't have any of the usual bait fish, so we marked no bait as we idled over areas of interest. We alternated the Spot Sticker in Morning Dawn with a 4.5 and 6 in Roboworm in Aaron's Magic and a Strike King Dream Shot in Morning Dawn throughout the day. We seemed to catch em everywhere, but the best numbers came on channel swings in the mid-lake area, particularly near running water and any timber. Still no bigs, but we'll find em.

Tuesday, October 15th, 2019

  • Lake County
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      Report: by StanL » Tue Oct 15, 2019 8:33 pm
      Fishing Clear Lake This Week Oct 15

      So.. i’m going to start this fishing report off a little different than what I usually do.

      First of all its different because its from Clear Lake and I usually write Camanche reports but then I took that day trip to Clear Lake a couple weeks ago and well I guess I caught the Clear Lake bug, so here is another from there.

      Next I have to share that Wednesday the 16th is me and my wife’s 37th wedding anniversary. We decided to go to Clear Lake last weekend to celebrate. I married the right one.

      When we hit the water Saturday morning the surface temperature was 65 degrees. We started fishing in the lower part of the lake with dropshots and Carolina rig’s but eventually switched to jigs.  We concentrated on points and breaks.

      I have to say this weekend was probably one of my best weekends on Clear Lake ever and my wife caught her personal best a 5.8 lb largemouth and I got two fish in the 8 pound class.

      I hope this helps good luck fishing

    • By

      Water Temp: 64.4-67.6

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Don’t have a long report as we got on the water Monday night & Tuesday afternoon. The night bite was scattered as we managed to boat 12 fish in the 2 - 3.5 range. They were hitting Texas rig beavers & power worms, just picking up the baits & running with them. The moon was full and as it got later, we ran into a decent crankbait bite over rocky humps. We fished until 6 AM & had definite lulls in between. The action was just enough to keep us interested, but not hot by any means.

      On Tuesday afternoon, the bite was much more active! Ted was drop shooting Roboworms in Morning Dawn & getting bit on just about every cast. I tried the Frenzy Nail with Don Iovino’s 6” spadetail in Green Weenie & was getting bit often too. The fish were small in the 1-2.5 range with one 4 lber. We fished Buckingham south covering a lot of spots & got action everywhere. Boated 40+ fish but once again a lot were small. I wanted to fish more but came down with a viscous cold Tuesday night so I spent the rest of the trip on my couch. I really wanted to hit it Weds day but just couldn’t answer the bell. I was hoping to concentrate more on locating bigger fish but didn’t get the chance!

      Tips: It seems the day bite is better right now. Unfortunately they are now developing the old Konocti Resort putting in new docks on top of prime fishing spots so there goes one of my best go-to spots! Oh well. They seemed to be keying on green/brown colors and were really active on the dropshot & shakeyhead. It was a small sample size, but I’ll be back in a few weeks to see if the bite gets really active. In the meantime, stay safe and have fun!

Monday, October 14th, 2019

  • Amador County
    • By

      Water Temp: 69.5 - 70.5

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished from around 4 pm to 12:30 am one day after the full moon. I got one keeper around 5:30 on a jig and a 3.7 that really nailed a spinnerbait at 8:30 pm, that's it. It was nice for a change to see and hear feeding and bait activity, sometimes it can be dead quiet at Amador. The wind was a bit annoying, but I was able to find a few somewhat sheltered areas. The lake is down about 27' from full but the ramp is very usable. The water is clean - no moss or algae, just a bit stained which is a good thing. So overall a slow trip.

      Tips: When the wind makes it difficult to fish a worm or jig, try a reaction bait. With the water at about 70 degrees, I saw no reason not to throw a spinnerbait.

Friday, October 4th, 2019

  • Lake County
    • By

      Water Temp: 66-68

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: I finally made it back to Clear Lake yesterday! A break from Berryessa where I have lived for most of the year. Went with buddy Mike Sperbeck and soon realize why I missed it so much! Awesome bite for about 6 hours with lots of quality bass from 3 to 4.5 lbs. Only caught a few in the one to two pound range. The dinks were feeding too and Mike caught one 4 or 5 inches!! Lost one or two big ones - but that is normal!! Don't want to say too much since Mike is fishing an upcoming tournament in a few weeks. We just stayed in the south end, covering lots of water. Lots of pre-fishing going on. One point had 3 boats on it! Lake had small white caps all day but was fishable in his 20 ft Ranger! Weird this time of year to have semi rough water in the morning. The lake should flatten out with the warm weather coming this weekend!

      Tips: I have some but don't go into details if a friend or client is preparing for a tournament. All I can say is that the good reports from Clear Lake are probably true. Imagine that!!

Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019

  • Solano County
    • By

      Water Temp: 66

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Started early on Disappointment Slough throwing lipless and squarebills to see if anything would react. zip. Next threw black/blue jig; picked up 2, about a pound each. Brother threw Tokyo rig with junebug beaver, picked up a couple more, one was about 2.5lbs, the other barely a pound. Worked rock wall leading to the main channel at St Francis/Tinsley with whopper plopper; couple 12"ers and couple more blowups. Moved to another rock wall at Columbia and worked towards the other yacht harbor; Started picking up a lot of 6 - 12"ers on lipless cranks in the flat; was using a floating rat-l-trap and when i stopped to chat with my brother, hard strike almost pulled my rod out of my hand...turned out to be a 2lb crappie. Started pausing the floating lipless 10-15 seconds and picked up a bunch of 10-12"ers. Got tired of that and headed to White Slough. Nothing on reaction there, even with the long pause. Went to 5" General on 1/8oz shakey head; caught 3 more each. 1pm, called it a day.

      Tips: Not qualified to give tips... we junk fished trying different baits just to get bit. I didn't think the water had cooled that much from a week ago when it was 76; not sure what to try now but I'm thinkin' going forward, I want to keep trying the squarebills and lipless and add in jerkbaits with long pauses. For plastics, senko types in 5" are my go-to but I'm forcing myself to throw jigs; still not that great at it. Tokyo rig with sweet beavers work for my brother. Ned and Neko will probably get some play time too. Hopin' more reports come through with more real tips.

  • Lake County
    • By

      Report: By StanL

      Day Trip Fishing Clear Lake

      As you know my fishing reports usually come from Camanche, but the opportunity came up for me to take a day trip to Clear Lake and I jumped at the chance.

      It’s been quite a few years since I’ve been there.

      My buddy Ryan and I left early and made our first stop at Limit Out Bait and Tackle and got our Quadra muscle sticker. It was the first time I've been in the store since Bob left. I hope to be back soon.

      We got on the water about 8:00 am and the surface temperature was 69°. The water visibility was about 2 feet.

      We decided to start fishing around Anderson Island and we both started out throwing reaction baits, mostly crankbaits, swimbaits but after a bit with no luck, we both picked up bottom baits. Ryan started throwing a River2Sea Papa Mur jig and I started throwing a Frenzy Nail with a Berkeey Green Pumpkin “The General “worm. With those we got a few small fish until we backed out Into a little deeper water. Then Ryan picked up the Frenzy Nail and BOOM, he caught one about 41/2 pounds. So I tied on a Carolina rig Baby Brushhog and we concentrated on deeper points and breaks in the midsection and lower parts of the Lake.

      We had to be off the water by around 3:00 pm. So all in all we had a great day and we ended up catching-eight fish. Our best five went around 17 or 18 lbs. I'll take that any day in October.

      I hope this helps good luck fishing!!

      Stan

Monday, September 30th, 2019

  • Amador County
    • By

      Report: by StanL » Mon Sep 30, 2019 8:54 pm

      Fishing Lake Camanche Sept 30

      What a difference a day makes. Me and my buddy John finally made it to the lake at the crack of dawn. Even with the surface temperature at 73°and a front coming in, we both started throwing reaction baits.

      John was chucking a spinnerbait and I was throwing a crankbait. After about 15 minutes of that, we moved out to a main lake point that was adjacent to the river channel.

      As soon as we got there, John picked up a brown 1/2 oz jig with a craw trailer and on the first cast he picked up a nice fish, so I went to a Frenzy Nail with a Berkley PowerBait Bottom Hopper worm in green pumpkin and it was on ..
      For the next 30 minutes, we jump

      We didn’t catch another fish until after 12 o’clock and we ended up moving out deeper and catching them on steeper points between 35 and 50 feet of water. All of those fish came on the same jig and a dropshot rig with a shad colored 4 inch worm.

      There was 613 CFS of water going out with 355 CFS going in, which might be contribute to a little better fishing than what it was a week ago when it was 1,899 CFS going out and 216 CFS coming in. The watercolor is still good with about eight feet of visibility

      Overall, it just goes to show you, when you’re fishing, everything could change every hour during this time of year. Keep an open mind.

      I hope this helps and good luck fishing.

      Stan

Sunday, September 29th, 2019

  • Lake County
    • By

      Report: Postby On The Water Guide Service » Sun Sep 29, 2019 2:19 pm

      With the summer coming to an end, fall patterns are begging to emerge up here at Clear Lake and the lake is changing daily. Cooler overnight air temperatures have brought water temps down a bit this week with readings in the high 60's in the morning and low 70's by the afternoon. Another noticeable change is that the weeds are dying back slowly and are becoming less numerous around the lake. There is still however a great deal of matted thick weeds all around the docks in Lakeport from the Skylark Resort up to about Rocky Point. The docks and shoreline are very fishable all along the Nice, Lucerne and highway 20 side of the lake as well as the rock piles in the narrows. The tule edges from Konocti Vista Casino all the way down to the State Park have been producing some nice fish for fisherman flipping the pockets and edges. Another good bite in the north end is to fish any isolated offshore weed clumps you might find in 6' to 10' of water. These weed clumps can often be way off shore by the 5mph buoys or way out in the middle of a bay. Drop shot, Senko, chatterbait, and spinnerbait have been working well in these areas. There is a lot of silverside minnows up in the shallows in the North end and the fish are keyed in on them right now. I did have a couple fun days catching them on a Lucky Craft Pointer 65 jerkbait, but you do have to go through a bunch of little fish before you get a good keeper it seems like. The LV500 or lipless crankbait bite is starting to come on strong up north and the yo-yo technique ripping it out of the weeds has accounted for some of the bigger fish being caught on that end of the lake. Topwater has been pretty much non existent for me ever since the cooling trend began but i still have my topwater box in the boat just in case we get a few warm days in a row.

      It still seems like most of the people are fishing the narrows and south two arms right now and with good reason. There is a good jig bite down there and a Carolina rigged brush hog is working well also. I was able to find some schools of big threadfin shad (3" to 4") suspended offshore in like 25' and those areas were definitely holding the bigger fish right now. I had a couple good days throwing a Speed Trap squarebill crank bait in a shad pattern down by Rattlesnake Island and over by Monitor Island but you do have to weed through some dinks to get a good one. I'm looking forward to a good S-Waver and glide bait bite to be starting up soon. Water temps need to get just a bit cooler.
      Sometimes the bite can be a bit tough this time of year especially with all the tournament pressure and the abundance of baitfish everywhere. If you find yourself struggling at all. I would recommend drop shotting a 6" purple plastic worm real slow on the bottom and you will catch them.

      Good luck out there and we will see you on the water,

      Troy

Friday, September 27th, 2019

  • Napa County
    • By

      Water Temp: 75-79

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Amazing day at Berryessa yesterday - and not in a good way! My client, who is an excellent bass fisherman, and I stared out in areas near the dam with no results. We went further up the narrows and found a nice, deep point. We threw topwater and soon I had a vicious hit and after a major tussle, landed a 3 + lb spotted bass. This is going to be THE day!! Not so!!! We drop-shotted a dink, then headed for the main body where my previous trips had worked out well. I stared looking for the bait that had been everywhere in previous trips - filling the screen of my HDS 12. NO bait here, NO bait there, NO bait anywhere!!! Moved around quite a bit - still NO bait. And, no bites. Couldn't believe it. He finally did catch a small bass. Hard to remember a trip that tough after the overall good September. The thrill of the day was getting across the main body after the cold front wind hit about 2 pm. Wow, that lake with all the open water, like Clear Lake, can get nasty in a matter of minutes. Only speared one wave - highlight of the day

      Tips: Obviously, the bait made a fall move and we didn't make the same move - I guess. We got a few spoon bites but missed 'em. As we moved back to the narrows in the afternoon, we did see a little more bait on the meter. Bait could be moving towards the north end of the lake

Wednesday, September 25th, 2019

  • Yuba County
    • By

      Report: by chadmitch » Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:04 pm

      Want to put the heads up for fisherman heading to bullards bar and specifically dark day launch ramp. Just spent a couple of days on a friends houseboat. Fishing was great , no big ones but lots of fish and fun.Got back to truck and trailer to pick up ranger and found that the twekers had cut my main gas line and also took a grinder and cut open my job box in bed of truck. Just want people to be aware. sounds like they have stepped up security at marina parking lot.I guess they have had over 30 of the same crimes in the last 3 monthes. The manager at the marina said that there have also been stories of them drilling out the gas tanks to steal gas.