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Northern California Lake Fishing Report

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Sunday, March 27th, 2011

  • Butte County
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      Water Temp: 46-52

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Went up to the lake test out my new rod for the first time this year. I knew the fishing will be tough but did't realize the water temp will be so cold. I should have of known the all that rain we had slow the fishing. Me and my friend only caught three fish and a accidental coho on darthead, Two of the fish were on tubes near current.
      City: daly city

      Tips: Look for current and warmer water. Check coves in less windy area. Fish were shallow. At least the ones we found. Shallow coves that doesn't seem to exist in this lake probably will warm up the fastest. Also stained water will warm up faster.

  • Sonoma County
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      Water Temp: 52-56

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Saturday Hank and I got on the water around 9am. Lake Sonoma came up about 10 feet since last time I was out here a couple weeks ago, and it was already at full pool then. There are submerged oak trees that are usually never it the water. All the storms we’ve had lately really muddied up the arms, but the main body still had around 3 foot visibility. Hank caught a three pounder first thing on a 3/8 oz jig with a smallie beaver. It came out of 20 feet of water on a rock pile near the marina. We went back into the warm springs arm and fished the running water from the creeks entering the lake. I caught a couple 2lbrs flipping a 5in white tube. Then Hank caught one around 4.5lbs one the jig. Some of the creeks had warmer (55 deg.), and clearer water coming in. Those were the ones that were holding the fish. We went back to the rock piles around the narrows and I caught a 2.5lb smallie on a 3in Dry Creek Tube. At this point in was about 3pm and we decided to make the run up north to see if our creek pattern would work there. After hitting about 20 creeks, we finally found one that looked good. I flipped the white tube all the way in the back and stuck one close to 9lbs, my largest out of Sonoma. By the end of the day we had around 22lbs for our largest 5 bass. Because of our success we decided to fish the Marine Unlimited Tournament on Sunday. It was cold and drizzly all day. We started off on a rock pile and caught a 1.5lb on a jig. We spent the next couple hours fishing rock piles, but only caught a couple short fish. We moved to the creek pattern, but I could tell that the air temp was too cold. The water coming in was the same temperature as the lake. We hit just about every damn creek in the lake, and finally at 1pm a caught a 5lbr on a Texas rigged Brush Hog. It was in the creek next to where I caught the 9lbr the day before. We continued to bounce around the lake fishing creeks, but had no luck. With about 5 minutes left, we were fishing right by the ramp, and caught a 2.5 lb smallie on a jig. 3 bass totaling 9.2 lbs was the total weight. I was quite disappointed with the results, but to my surprise, we still ended up finishing 6th place out of 38 boats. Almost half the boats blanked and only a few caught 5 fish limits. Sunday was definitely a tough day, but with this warm weather we are getting this week, things should really start turning on!
      City: San Bruno

      Tips: Please visit www.russnyders.com for more fishing reports, videos, and info on Northern California Guide Trips.

      <a href="http://www.russnyders.com/">Rus Snyders Guide Service</a>

    • By

      Water Temp: 50 ish

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished marine unlimited yesterday caught 3 keeper smallies and one largemouth. All on dropshot.5 short fish as well. Fish were in 10 feet or less, the deeper fish would not bite. The fish on the bank were white from being in deeper water.
      City: Cloverdale

      Tips: Once you find them stay with the wind and those fish. With cold rising water steeper banks will hold fish as fish rise vertical with the water.
      Dropshot and jigs, no bite just pressure. Stay with your area in these type conditions.

  • Trinity County
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      Water Temp: 46

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: fished the southern end of the lake for a few hours. Pretty bad weather- hail, snow and rain. Landed four smallies all above 2lbs, with one over 4lbs.
      City: weaverville

Saturday, March 26th, 2011

  • Napa County
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      Water Temp: 50-53

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: My partner and I fished the Future Pro event today and killed em on crank baits!!!! It took over 22 pounds to win, we ended up in 3rd place with 19.5 pounds. We fished main body stuff mostly in the vineyards area SHALLOW. we caught 18 fish on crank baits and a couple on jigs all fish were over 3 pounds with 2 over 5. Wind blown points were all we fished and worked great for us.
      City: roseville

  • Solano County
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      Water Temp: ??

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Mobile Homes were floating in chocolate milk around their cars at Wimpy's parking lot. Mokelumne River is now Mokelumne Ocean.
      City: Cameron Park

      Tips: Winterize your automobiles at Wimpy's Mobile Home Park.

  • Sonoma County
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      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Went up to yorty today to check it out , I had to walk down because the gate was locked due to flooding. Ive never seen it this full the parking lot was under water i fished for about a half hour with no bites useing a 3:16 blue gill swim bait untill I got rained out. It should get alot better soon when we get some good weather.
      City: healdsburg

      Tips: It needs to warm up and clear up and the bass will be slammen.

Friday, March 25th, 2011

  • Solano County
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      Water Temp: 51

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched at Rivers end and stayed South all Day. Fished Docks, Then went to Victoria/Union,then to Italian. Threw Spinnergaits and Craw Cranks. These fish are Bunkered Down Again. 3 Largemouths all day for about 6 pounds. Tough Day, Poor Condions.
      City: Concord

      Tips: Stay inside until the wind and Rain stop, Alot of Debris Floating in the water, and the Temp has dropped about 5 degrees in the last week or so. BEST part out there today, No Presure and NO WATERSKIERS.

    • By

      Water Temp: 47-49

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished a work t-shoot with conditions looking better than I was imagining they would be. Main lake and Rock is heavily stained, but looks like the Delta and fishes pretty good. Bear River is thick enough to plow and needs a week of good weather to straighen it out.

      My partner and I weighed 14.52 lbs.with a 5.39 BF. Two jig fish and the rest of our limit came on crankbaits. All of our fish were in 5-10 ft. of water on a shallow point and hit the crank when it was digging the bottom hard. One other team had a limit for 11 lbs. that came in the shallows north of the Spillway.
      City: Roseville

      Tips: I wasn't planning on a good day, it just worked out that way. The fish were ALOT shallower than I thought they would be and were alot more active as well. With the water color, stick with the bottom bumping baits like a jig or crank and work them slow.

  • Fresno County
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      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Friday was a beautiful day, a gift not to be wasted. After 2pm, hiked the banks at Winchell Cove on the opposite side of the marina. Found a little shelf and tossed out a River2Sea craw and pulled out two two pounders within 10 minutes of each other. Tried different presentations in the same location but to no avail. Walked further East to hit more banks, pulled in a short fish, and that was it for the day. Little craw was all that seemed to work that day.
      City: Fresno

      Tips: Uphill bottom bump plastic craws

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

  • Sacramento County
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      Water Temp: 50.5

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: awesome day yesterday. fished for three windy hours with 7 fish coming in a 45 min period which included a 3.1 and a 3.9. all fish caught on reaction in 3-7ft water, working fast through the rocks. love days when you can fish like that! 6 of 7 were spotted... all fat and white as wool.

      Tips: don't give up too quickly on a pattern you know should be working.

  • Butte County
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      Water Temp: 51-52

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: went to the lake this morning to let the dog run and noticed the water level dropped and all the driftwood is sitting on the shore until they close the spillway and the level rises again. found a rattlesnake at perish cove, almost stepped right on top of her. It's a good thing it is still pretty chilly out or I might have had a rude begining to my Tuesday. Every year the lake fills up, the rattlesnakes get real bad around the shoreline. Today was was close enough for me to call it good on any further shore fishing for the season. Just boat trips from now on.

      Tips: the lake looked to have dropped 5-10 feet the water was a bit cooler and a bit murky. caught 1 spot pushing 2 lbs and I didn't try real hard. she was caught on a wacky senko in green.

  • Sonoma County
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      Water Temp: 48-51

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Went fishing, caught fish. Hopefully this weather holds up and they keep biting. No real pattern, just kind of hit a mis. Tried to stay on main lake areas and then headed back into creeks. Most fish seemed to be in transition.
      City: Santa Rosa

      Tips: Fish the main lake areas looking for transitions. Any bait will work as long as you paid 4.95/pk. or more. Really, bait doesn't matter, they will come out with another one the catches fish down the road at some point.

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

  • Solano County
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      Water Temp: ???

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: With my Custom Valco "BASSBUSTER1" still being serviced at Delta Marine I had no choice this afternoon but to walk the banks around Ladd's Marina today. Even though we have this bad windy storm blowing through the region this weekend the BITE IS STILL ON!!!

      I caught my first duoble-digit bass of my career (10.5 lbs) witnessed by my friend and fishing buddy. I'm very greatful he was willing to take the time to come out in the rain with a Berkley Digital scale and his camera.

      The huge bass was caught in about 6 ft. of water with a custom built jig, Brown/Orange flake skirt and a Berkley Power Craw trailer (Punkinseed/chartruese). She gave a good fight after smacking my jig.
      City: Stockton

      Tips: Even though we have bad weather this weekend persistance pays off. I did not see a single boat trailer in the launch ramp parking lot.

      Also, I was wondering if the angler happens to be reading this report I found a 6" Lizard with a 5/0 super line hook in her if you were the one that possibly got broken off. :-)

  • Sacramento County
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      Water Temp: 48 degress

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: I started on north about 6:30am and fished points and rock piles. I fished about 22-35 ft deep of water. I showed all sorts of presentations and got no hits. For the second week in a row I got skunked. Water was really murky and windy
      City: Sacramento

Saturday, March 19th, 2011

  • Ventura County
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      Water Temp: 60-62

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: This report covers the last three weekends for me at Casitas. It should be noted it snowed down to lake level on the weekend of Feb. 26th-27th when the fish were in full swing for an early spawn. I fished all three weekends with the same partner who had been fishing in deep water with big jigs at Piru and could not wrap his head around the fact that Casitas fish had been spawning in Feb. until I showed him all of the beds.The water temps initially started at about 57morning /59 by the end of the day, This third week just prior to a whole lot of rain on Sunday water temps started at 60 and I saw 62 most of the day under overcast skies. The first trip after it had snowed we caught fish shallow but while there were beds everywhere it was evident that the main portion of the fish that had built those beds had pulled off leaving slim pick'ns up shallow. The second week we did much better but were still lacking in numbers using the same baits as the week before, We sampled the lake and caught fish every where we went but not bed fish. They were at the entrance to the backs of coves in 10-15. This past weekend 3/19 saw us fishing in the middle of a WON tournament with 24 boats in the field. There were fish actively spawning on this day and it was fun to watch and move on. I did my best at keeping my partner from molesting to many of the locked on fish. We never had anyone around us all day as we again sampled different areas and found the fish much more active. I had 4 in the boat in the first 10 minutes of our morning of the 19th when I put down a senko and used a ripbait on an outside point. The fish were farther offshore than I would have thought and liked a slow rip pause retrieve. Color: Ghost Tennessee shad Lucky craft 127Mr.These fish would have been culled by later efforts easily but I found there location to be the bigger mystery. We moved along on the trolling motor from the back of a long cove towards main lake and found bigger females on dropshot worms on the entrance to the coves. Color watermelon candy 4.8 worm rigged wacky. These fish were offshore on the outside of the secondary flooded brush about 15-20 feet. That bite evaporated as we got closer to the main lake. I moved the boat onto main lake structure around noon and caught nothing in 20 minutes on my best stuff so I quickly left that and went back to the back of a cove and worked my way out. We popped a bunch of fish on senkos from 1:00 until 3:30.... Color: green pumpkin black flake rigged wacky weedless fished on 8 pound/10 pound flouro dbl. Uni power pro. The water was ultra clear but the storms pounding the area right now could help us out from the 15-20 foot viability that we have now. The outlook for April is very good as the fish that pulled off the beds in March are going to supplement the fish that had an April time frame.
      City: Ojai

      Tips: The water is clear. Use polarized glasses and fish the offshore 12 foot deep wood and weed edges. The spawning activity is evident everywhere in the shallows so focus just off those beds...or of course you can go around catching buck bass off of beds instead of the better quality to be had just a few feet deeper at this time.

  • Fresno County
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      Water Temp: 56

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Tons of Spots everywhere. Surely in prespawn and will readily bite plastics, ripbaits or jigs. Windy today but a good bite anyway. Most fish we caught today were on points or along cliff walls.
      City: Fresno

      Tips: Plastics, jigs, ripbaits, spinnerbaits all work great now.

Friday, March 18th, 2011

  • Santa Barbara County
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      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: I was just wondering if the inspections up there are still hard to pass.
      City: taft

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

  • Amador County
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      Water Temp: 56

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Cloudy with some wind. took the son-in-law since he too is not working. first and only stop was the second dike. we had over 30 fish each and they were all around a pound. we could of looked for bigger fish but the dike blocks the wind so good why leave. I let my son use my old pistol grip rod from the 1970s and told him to set the hook as hard as he could when felt a bite. After the 8th fish he caught on to my joke asked for a different rod. most of the fish today were spots with a few trout mixed in. we stay next to some old tree line in 35 ft of water we lost about 12 jigs and a few drop shots. good day
      City: Lodi

      Tips: the crazy color did not do well for us, the more natural colors were getting snacked hard. for jigs try 1/4 or 3/8 clear olive with watermelon or light smoke. drop shot was not as good but did produce. we use 4 inch green robo worms the purples, shad patterns and the larger worm did not work for us. when you catch you first fish start fishing small and slow. good luck and be safe.

  • Lake County
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      Water Temp: 51

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: first time on clear lake ever,being from so. cal. my wife asked where i would like to go for our anniversary and i said clear lake. we got there late sat. and left tues. at noon. Fished some on sunday and had no idea where to fish and there was a big tourny going on so i just picked a spot and fished . managed to catch a 2# fish on a jerk bait . threw all i could think of that might trigger a strike and no luck. had some bad weather and with the wife it shortend my fishing time. monday nite was nice and my wife said she would try some nite fishing. went where i metered some fish during the day and my wifes first cast was a nice 5# and i managed a 6# fish. only fished 3 hours befor wife got cold and called it a nite . Realy had fun and loved the lake, it was just a huge lake and a little intimidating. plan on another trip as soon as i can.
      City: tehachapi

      Tips: caught my best fish on home made 7" pastic green weenies