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Northern California Lake Fishing Report

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Sunday, January 20th, 2008

  • Lake County
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      Water Temp: 42

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Went fishing, found out there was a tournament going on, caught 5 fish weighed 25+ pounds, ran around other boats all day. If you didn't catch fish, sell your boat--you are not the next pro you thought you were. Give it up!!!
      City: St. Rose

      Tips: If you can't catch fish, stay home and sell your boat. Besides, it too cold anyway and the fish no it.

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      Water Temp: 44 to 47

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished Aba on Sun 1/20/08. My partner and I threw everything at them with not a single bite. We went north, south, east and west. 35 boats and eleven came in with nothing. The winners had 24+lbs, unbelievable? I guess we will need to practice more.
      City: roseville

      Tips: I dont know what to do, any help you can e-mail.

    • By

      Water Temp: 44-48

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Dead Battery in boat, left timer on live well for 3 weeks:), blown lower unit seal, nice wad of mono around my prop, truck would not start, fuel injector proplem, did I go home, heck no I jimmy rigged everything and got on the water at 2:00 pm and fished until 8:00 pm on Saturday and got 2 fish to 3 lbs(I must be a superfisherman, read last report:)) anyway how you catch a fish when the bite is this slow/bad is reaction or dead stick, when I say dead stick I mean toss your offering out there and eat a sandwich or drink a cup of coffee and do not move your bait for 3-5 minutes, its like fishing with live bait. I got one 3 lber on a mini C-rig with a 6 inch wormouth robo worm wacky style and a 2 lber on a water melon candy weighless Senko wacky style both loaded with smelly jelly and again I had to wait 4-5 minutes and not move it at all. I did try ripping for 30 minutes and cranken for about 30 minutes but not a bite oh and I did try a swim bait for about 20 minutes also. Saturday was dead calm, at 8:00 at night I did not have to touch my trolling motor and did not move for 30 minutes, Saturday at the same spot you could have surfed the white caps/waves were so high, very scary, I turned around and head to the creek but only had a hour to fish before the game.
      City: San Jose

      Tips: Tip #1 Plastics loaded with smelly jelly and dead stick it. Tip #2 Try to keep your offering off the bottom in there face but don't move it. Tip #3 wait unit water reaches 60 in Feb:)

  • Sacramento County
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      Water Temp: ???????

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Same type of bite as last January, But way different way different water conditions.
      City: antelope

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      Water Temp: 49-50

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Water is low, but launched in my 40' Diesel pusher no problem. Fish were quality, not quanity. Caught 3 largemouth cranking and a 6 pounder on a spinnerbait. No jig or worm fish.
      4 fish for 16 lbs.

      Tips: Reaction baits

  • Tuolumne County
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      Water Temp: 51

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: tough bite but managed to find a pattern around noon caught 6 fish in the 1-2 lb found a creek full of timber and just rip them for about an hour and a half then the bite died out
      City: modesto

      Tips: 3/4 oz. hopkins smothie spoons

Saturday, January 19th, 2008

  • Napa County
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      Water Temp: 45-52

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished all day, surprised how many boats were out there. Caught 9 for the 2 of us. Couldnt find a pattern to save our lives. Caught some on drop shot, darterheads and cranks. Was not a certain color that was better than the other. Biggest two were around 2lbs. Beautiful day though!
      City: Kelseyville

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      Water Temp: 50-52

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Wow - all those boats on the lake today and no reports? Well, I'll give the first for '08 - such as it is! I guided two fellows today, showing them ways to catch cold winter bass. And this was the day to try - 28 to 32 degrees all the way from Yuba City to Berryessa They wanted to learn spooning and drop-shotting techniques. We learned them fine but the bass wern't impressed. Caught only one drop-shotting and none spooning. Water color might have been an issue. We started at 8:30 am out of Markely because I wanted them to fish most of the afternoon. That worked out fine - most of our fish were caught after 1 pm. We had a day of streaks - 0 for 10 bites, 10 for 10 bites, and one of the guys lost the last one - so, 10 bass for 21 bites. One of the fellows had the best day - 5 in the boat and most of the bites. He had the 2 biggest - a smallie and spot a little over 2 lbs each. And he was the guy in the middle of the boat! We fished all over the narrows, out to the mouth of the main body.
      City: Yuba City

      Tips: The jig bite really didn't get going for us which kind of surprised me. Finally I suggested that the guys split-shot some Robo worms and that was the trick. MMIII was the color the bass wanted. The worm bite happened on very steep walls with 50 or so feet of water nearby. Points wern't very productive yet.

  • Lake County
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      Water Temp: 42

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: I took a buddy, his wife, and 2 daughter's out of the Narrow's Resort on Sat. The lake was flat calm and it was very nice, weather wise. We tried trolling for trout for about an hour and didn't get a bite. So, we moved in closer to shore on the north end and got 2 trout, in about 30 feet of water. Both on small minnows.
      City: San Francisco

      Tips: Go slow <*)))>><<

  • Solano County
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      Water Temp: 48-50 ( Saw 50

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Water was colder than a witches tit !! Hit up Disco Bay hitting mostly the NW corners of all the bays we hit ( saw 49-50 degree water in the NW corners ). Threw Drop-Shots, Jigs, Split-Shot Worms, Grubs, Swimbaits, Crankbaits, and Beavers for squat. Not even a tick. We fished from about 11:45am till 3:00-15, and fished as slow as we could and nothing. At one point we even soaked/dead-sticked our baits for 3-5 minutes at a time with light twitches to try to entice some knucklehead squeakers and they just weren't havin' it. We'll need a few more weeks before they start really warming up, in my opinion.
      City: Sunnyvale

      Tips: I have none, since we ate so much crow, feathers are coming out our butts still. LoL

  • Ventura County
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      Water Temp: 57-58

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Got there late about 10:30am. Hit up the area around Dead Horse and found 2 fish on a DD-22 and 1 on Texas rigged plastic around 20'-25' within an hour. Found 1 more about 2:00pm on the DD-22 at the East side of the island. All fish were 1.5-3 lbs nothing big -- tough bite.
      City: El Segundo

  • Lake County
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      Water Temp: 45-47

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: You know the bite is tough when the minnow fisherman can't get a bite. The Redwood Empire Bass Club held their 1st tourney of the year on a chilly Saturday. Air temp in the morning hovered around 30 degrees. Out of 9 teams, only 1-15 lb limit came in. 2nd place went 9.28 lbs for 2 fish including the big fish for the day at 5 lbs. Almost everone who caught fish were using a jig and going as deep as 30'. Water clarity varies around the lake depending on how close you get to the creeks so you have your choice from clear to muddy. Check out all the weights at www.rebc.net and look for us next month at Lake Sonoma.
      City: Rohnert Park

      Tips: Fish really SLOW!

  • Tuolumne County
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      Water Temp: ? cold

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: lake is coming up...finally, fishing was slow, but not dead. jigged a few and 2 on dropshot in the main lake, oxblood worked 4 me.
      City: dos palos

      Tips: dress warm

  • Sacramento County
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      Water Temp: 43-47

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Got out on the water about 8am on Saturday, lots of boats on the water. Temperature change is waaaay closer than usual, before rattlesnake. Bite was ,we boated 7 fish up to 3.5 saw Elk Grove Bass out there and everyone was saying bite had been tuff. Jigs seemed to be key, no dropshot bite, all solid fish I think the lake is going to be turning on here soon, or maybe already has.
      City: Orangevale

      Tips: 20-30 ft, fish reallll slow. Some fish up shallower 0-10 but not consistent.

    • By

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: First time on lake. Managed to get a 5lb. 2oz. bass on a black/brown 1/2 oz. jig with a green pumpkin craw trailer in the last 30 minutes to keep from getting blanked.
      City: Monterey

      Tips: As with most Nor-Cal lakes in January use slow presentations and be patient.

  • Mariposa County
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      Water Temp: 54-57

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished Nor-Cal today and it was cold, started out throwing a 6" Mission Fish for about an hour with not even a follow, switched to DD-22 in Delta Craw and got two off of the creek channel openings;points. Should have stayed with it swiched up to drop shotting a 4" 082 and got bites but no size; again all on rock piles running into the water; 10' or less. Swiched to a dart head to finish a rat limit of 6.48 and come in 7th; fishing was like the days of old at McClure.
      City: Hilmar

      Tips: Crank primary and secondary points early, drop shot and darthead w/082 and browns(grn.pkn)to twenty five feet. If your not getting bit move, they dont seem to be turning all of the sudden, the bites were on each spot in first ten cast.

  • Ventura County
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      Water Temp: 50

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: jig/brown and purple shallow,drop shot 35-45 ft,water level very low appox 60 feet,better fish came on jigs
      City: la canada

      Tips: brown jigs/shollow and deep,rocky points

Friday, January 18th, 2008

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

      Report: Went with my friend on Friday was cold & windy early, a lot of boats on the lake considering the conditions, we caught only six fish, all were caught on dropshot except one which my friend caught on a carolina rigged creature bait. Most of the fish were caught shallow when you left your bait sitting still for a period of time and then retreived it a fish was on. The best fish was a four pound spotted bass best five a shade over twelve pounds.
      City: sonoma

      Tips: Very slow presentation and even slower bite. The worm of choice on Friday roboworm six inch prism craw.

  • Ventura County
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      Water Temp: 56

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Not as good when I was out there on the 29th. If you know me I threw swimbaits from noon till close. Heard it was tough out there, had a couple of followers and one good bite. Going out there on the 19th. Trout they planted were about 12 inches and very dark in color. good luck chief
      City: Oakview

      Tips: I got lucky to get a 10 & 9 a week after the plant on the 29th. Should be good in the next couple of days. Break out the big stuff.

    • By

      Water Temp: 58-60

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Threw swimbaits for 4 hours. I had a 5 pounder on an osprey in less than 15 feet in the first 20 minutes then it was dead for me. They just planted trout this morning so it should help this bite even more. Keep chuck'n and winding with something you believe in and you'll do fine...
      City: Ojai

      Tips: It's time to toss your big stuff kids as the bigger girls are start'n to think about things a little more seriously.