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Northern California Lake Fishing Report

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Sunday, July 29th, 2007

  • Napa County
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      Water Temp: warm

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: This past weekend at the lake was very warm better spent swimming then fishing unless you went to Big Island for trout, salmon or kokanee which were being caught 55 to 80 feet deep. Lots of boats were trolling and catching fish. The bass on the other hand were not as obliging. The lake is full of feeder fish and with the full moon this week they have gorged themselves. On Saturday my friend Bob and I headed towards the BOR with no luck. We headed across the lake to the Ranch house and fished my two favorite points and picked up two nice smallies on River2Sea crawdads and Procure scents. It was a tough day for bass in shallow water. Sunday was a little cooler but still the bass were not cooperating. In the evening Abe and his girlfriend and a few friends went for catfish and landed a couple on hotdogs. They also caught a large carp and a couple of crappies. During the week I went rock fishing out of Emeryville on the "Happy Hooker" and caught 53 rock fish and 1 undersize lingcod. What a difference in temperature from the ocean to the lake. I'll take the lake anytime!!!! 'til next week................good fishing!!!!!!!!!!! www.fishingconnection.net If you have any fishing stories you would like to share please email me at
      bestguide@hotmail.com or call me at 650-583-3333
      City: Napa

      Tips: early mornings or after the sun goes down

  • Solano County
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      Water Temp: 70-75

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Jason, Terry and I fished out of B&W at 5:45am with the winds blowing light. I gave the two some tour of the delta and some hints were and how. First to get out of the wind and hit some rocky banks and tules. With the high tide coming in it gave us sometime to try our frogs, spinners, spooks and buzz baits. We stayed close to the banks using sankos and craws in dark colors. Jason hit one that broke his rod tip and Terry got his bass working the points, rocks and tules also
      City: rocklin

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

      Report: Hadn't fishesd in a while just wanted to shout out to Rippa. I know things changed but i dont have your digits. Give it up ill holler back.
      lata
      City: reseda

  • Lake County
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      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: The wife and I finally got on the lake just before noon on Sunday. After three weeks of work, traveling and other stuff it was great to be on the water once again. We ended up taking just over 30 fish using many different techniques. Drop-shot, Basstrix, Jig and Shakey Head worm all took fish for us. We had two unusual occurences today as well. The first involved seeing a full grown bald eagle, that was way cool. The second (and this has never happened to me) was having an Osprey swoop down and grab my 6" lunker punker (I kid you not) the fish grabbed the lure and actually took drag for a few seconds before dropping the lure. How the bird avoided the hooks was beyond me, but I sure was thankful it did. Anyhow the biggest fish of the day was a 5-5 I took at Henderson finesse fishing a baby brushhog on a shakey head jig, our best 5 for the day went just over 19lbs.
      City: Petaluma, CA

    • By

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: I went out on my float tube today and caught one small pounder on a chartruse bass pro shops cranck bait the right when i was waiting for my parents to come and pick me up i threw out a wacky worm senko about 15 feet on the boat ramp and i got a birds nest and right when i picked it out my line went straight and i felt a pull so i pulled back it was a 6.1 pound bass.
      City: P

      Tips: use crank baits by the roocks.

Saturday, July 28th, 2007

  • Solano County
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      Water Temp: 80?

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: I'm so sore. Headed out yesterday morning in what turned out to be an all day affair. Launched my float tube at 8am from Beacon and began hitting fish in the shaded areas behind the docks. Fish were hitting my jig and weightless t-rig senkos. Took a break from the water from about noon to 130pm. Launched back out when the tide started coming back in. Found a mat and tried to flip my senko into one of the holes. Senko landed ontop of some floating dead tules and BOOM!!! A fish just exploded on it! Turned out to be best fish of the day, 5+lbs. Waded the docks a little more and waited for the rec. boats to come back in. When it looked like most of them were in, I set out to the tulle wall across from the levy. From there, the fishing was insane. Every fish was at least a 3lber. All in all, a great day on the water! best 5 - 18lbs. My best limit ever!
      City: SF

      Tips: Get a tube. I love it. Senkos and Jigs did the trick for me. Target the shade. Under mats, docks, in the tules. Understanding the tide definately helps!

      Being able to spend the whole day in basically the same area taught me a lot about how the tide affects the position of the fish. Thanks to everyone for the input!

    • By

      Water Temp: 80

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: went out for a little night fishing in the tube and found the bite to be unreal. I hit a bank in the afternoon and could not get a tap but about 10 at night it was all out madness. All on black jigs as fast as you could cast.
      City: S.L.

      Tips: Fish the full moon.

  • Lake County
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      Water Temp: 75-77

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Clear Lake still off the hook, water still very clear, some spots you can still see down 6 feet, I also saw lots of bait fish, 1/2 inch to 2 1/2 inchs long. The night bite was not good for me on Fri night, though a night tourney produced a 28 lb limit but the guys I spoke to had 18 lbs and they did not bring home a check, I also had around 18 lbs with two 5 lbers on Sat and about 22 fish total. Sat night was worse so went to sleep for 3 hrs and fished the Sun morn AM bite with little success until 8 and went in for coffee and donuts, bought some small bait fish fluks to try drop shot and got zero bites on them, I could see fish under docks and said hey lets try a watermelon senko and for the next 2 hrs I wacked them, first dock 5 lber, next dock 5 lber next dock 6 lber and I went back to each dock and got 3 lbers and than did it again and got 2 lbers, I can not tell how big a fish is in 2 feet of water under a dock because the 2 lbers tuned into 6 lbers and the 6 lbers turned into 3 lbers, I do not know how to sight fish in the Spring so it was awesome seing the fish eat the Senko right in front of you. Now don't laugh at me but I was using my crucial drop shot rod with 8 lb line to fish my Senko's, I can skip that thing so well under the docks but sure enouph it happend, I had a fish pull about 30 yards of line until it snapped my 8 lb line like it was 2 lb line, I didn't even slow it down, I hooked it by the bank and it was headed for the dock 40 yards away so I was trying to stop it before it got there, it may have been a big cat because I did get a couple of 4 lber on my drop shot the night before at the same spot. I can handle a 6 lber on my 8 lb line with no problem, I have caught 5 fish over 6 bls on it with no problem so what ever it was was big. 18 lbs on Sat, 22 lbs on Sun.
      City: San Jose

      Tips: Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon what ever you throw use watermelon with any flake, Senko, Brush hog, sweet beaver, hula grub and worm. During the heat of the day toss that senko under docks in the shade, it also works in open water but not as good, I did catch a few in open water, be patient and let it fall all the way to the bottom, even if its 20 feet deep, I got me 6 lber in 20 feet in front of the dock though most of my fish were in 2-4 feet of water, I could see them:). I want to thank all the people that took photo's for me, I had 2 tourney guys take pictures for me, one team in a Bass Cat and one team in a Stratos, these guys gave the sport a good name and were happy to take the photo's for me.

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

      Report: I spent July 16-19 on the lake in a houseboat. The fishing was awesome! Most fish were right on the bank, or within 10 feet of it. I only needed 2 rods...one for a blade and the other for a spook. I caught fish on other baits, but the best quality and quantity came from those two baits. I spent less than 10 hours fishing over those four days and probably caught over 60 fish. The thing that most impressed me was the amount of largemouth I caught during this trip and this time of year. I had three LMs over 3 lbs. plus a few others. Had a blast! The Oroville bass were fighting hard...
      City: Rocklin

      Tips: Take the kids fishing

  • Calaveras County
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      Water Temp: 76

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Decided late to get away fronm the Delta. One hour from Tracy. Office did not offer any tips or a smile. Crazy with jet skiers, but they stay pretty much at the boat ramp. Points and weed lines 6-10 ft. Launched at 9 and done by 2. 20 fish to 4 lbs. TOP WATER.
      City: TracyCh

      Tips: Top water all day. Lake is 20 ft at deepest point. Fish have no where to go but grass and all come up and kill it.

    • By

      Water Temp: 75

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Two of us only caught 4. 2 on a Pop-R, biggest 3-8!
      One on a DT HulaGrub. One on an olive Bitsy Jig with green pumpkin trailer.
      City: Monterey

Friday, July 27th, 2007

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

      Report: Looks like I won't be fishing the stockton bass tournament tomorrow because I was involved in an accident and my truck maybe totaled. Good luck to all you guys at stockton bass tomorrow and be safe. I might still be able to make the TOC it all depends on how everyone else does. Of course I'm fishing the rest of the season because my partner and I had a falling out and we will not fishing together anymore. So it looks like I'll be finishing the year solo.
      City: EDH

      Tips: Be careful out there!!

  • Lake County
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      Water Temp: 80ish

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: I took my 9 year old daughter to sample the action. We got a late start, 10 am and really didnt catch a fish till a tad after 11am. Rodstrainer jigs made up the bulk of our fish. I only caught one fish over three pounds today, but it was a good one, 6.25. Not long and skinny, but short and fat. I saw a group of fish shallow in the rocks and cast a jig in 1 foot of water and brought it by them. One ate it. That does not usually happen in July at 11:30am. Then my daughter throws her senko in the right vicinity. and before long yells that she has one....what a nice fish for a 9 year old. 2.75lbs. She hooked another, but it broke off down below the boat. The farther north(shag rock, henderson) we went, the tougher the bite was. This may have been due to the time of day also, 4pm. Finished up down south in some trees w/5 more, but only 2 of them were big enough to write home about.
      City: yuba City

      Tips: Unlike others, I saw millions, ok, maybe only a million shad today. They were bunched up in the shade near henderson. I also saw what I believe were many schools on the meter.

    • By

      Water Temp: 75-80

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fishing was great. I was standing in the water in the north area of clear lake and I saw bass literally 3 feet from my legs. I caught 8 off of senko rootbeer and watermelon. One bite off of buzzbait near the docks. Everytime I caught a fish there was others following along! A seven-pounded was following my bass! As always shad been swimming everywhere! I used my new abu garcia revo/lamiglas senko special and it was great! Good fishing buddies!
      City: santa rosa

      Tips: Switch up colors of senkos. Go wacky with gamagotsu's weedless hooks(ewg). Also try Xrap minnow or shad look alike rapala's in the beds around 7-8 feet.

      (bass are around 7-10 feet around beds and vegetation)

    • By

      Water Temp: 73-81

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Alert! Shad spotted!! Actually I saw one 3/8" shad dying on the surface near Anderson Island. Hope that wasn't the LAST one!!! I did spot a few tight small schools of bait on the meter at about 25 feet in the south end. Let's hope! I finished 4 days of guiding Mon-Thurs and found nothing new - the bite is still good though average size is down a bit. While many appear to be on a slim-fast diet, we did get some that looked like bass from last year - they must have found those shad schools! Highlights included my longest-standing client (since 1984) having a great day Wed landing many bass including a 5 pounder in spite of lots of pain from a recent fall. On Tues a father brought his 11 year old son who had never fished much before and never caught a bass. He could cast however. The Clear Lake bass hope he never returns as he was 9 for 10 - 10 bites and 9 in the boat up to 3 1/4 lbs. I watched in amazement as he started pitchin' to docks with a spinning rod with no hint from me as to what pitchin' was or how to do it. Talk about instincts!! He is a natural! We fought the wind Mon and Tues and then hoped for a breeze to cool us off on Wed and Thurs. Forgot what a flat Clear Lake looked like! Overall, fishing was excellent with counts of 26, 32, 35, and 40+ bass caught and released. 3 of the 4 trips were teach-the-lake and techniques trips - moving around a lot looking at different structures. Pros-to-be in the making - especially the 11 year old!
      City: Yuba City

      Tips: The algae that was forming in the Oaks arm during the last short heat spell has all but disappeared. There is pretty good water color however. The normal early morning summer carp splashing did not happen much this week (south end) because of the cooler water I guess. In keeping with that, the bass activity didn't really start for us until later in the morning, except for a few buzz-bait fish up to 4 lbs. The jig bite continues to be great with black/blue the best color. Brown/orange produced a few yesterday. Junebug 10" Power and 8" Dead Ringer worms were excellent too. The Yamamoto Kreature baits were the baits of choice however - Junebug (#213) the best and green/pumpkin (#301) second. We used Senkos yesterday a lot with excellent results - hooking bass up to 4 1/2 lbs. Best colors were 912, 921, 927, and 213. We found lots of shallow bass yesterday crusing around in the weeds from 3 to 6 feet deep. Even spotted a few under docks in the shade - thought it was spring revisited!! I nailed a good Senko bass under a sailboat but lost it half way in. One of the fellows yesterday did some drop-shotting with 5" Senkos and did very well - hooking the biggest of the day. If you haven't used the laminate colored Senkos yet - you should!

    • By

      Water Temp: cold

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: I realize this posted will be deleted (as will Tom's, hopefully), but I must say I'm with you Warren. Tom, I've read your Loma reports with respect and interest for a while (and yes, I'm one of Brentwood's "finest", I guess). I'm a human being, with a loving family, college educated and a 6 figure income. Your broad assumptions, categorizations and venom are disappointing. Still hard for me to believe people can hate you for just being. Did you tell the guy you were working a fish, or just storm away cursing every person of color?
      City: brentwood

      Tips: Find God and lighten up. This isn't what fishing is supposed to be about.

    • By

      Water Temp: Cold

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Tom, thanks for the fishing report, however, in case you didn't know God gave everyone life...even you. Keep your hatred and bile to yourself and just submit fishing reports. You ought to be grateful that you've got a $12.00hr job. Oh I'm willing to have a one on one bass tournament any water any time I'll take vacation to make it happen...this will be for all those down trodden folk you so despise. Check-out the water clarity...CLEAR....I see what you represent.
      City: Vallejo

    • By

      Water Temp: 79

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Big blow ups on topwater.Only landed 1 fish...8 lbs. Worked another big fish for an hour until someone weaseled his way up on my spot from a float tube.I float this lake a lot too, but there is an etiquette when on the water and this ass never heard of it.I have fished this lake for over five years and caught lots of huge bass.This is a quick getaway for me to escape the crap like this city's "section 8" crisis. So now these bastards are invading my favorite fishing hole.You just can't escape Antioch's "finest" now.I'm pissed that now they even have to crowd you out of a fishing spot WHILE you are actually working a big fish. Time to hit the Delta where they haven't yet traded in their "Escalades" for bass boats.
      City: Antioch

      Tips: Tight lines to all of you who are hard working, don't milk the system, and have a sense of respect and ettiquette while out fishing.

    • By

      Water Temp: 80

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished New Hogan Friday for some stripers. Got there late, 9 am, and didn't notice any boils. Started bass fishing and hooked and lost a nice on a spook. Caught a few bass and then noticed a boil across the lake. Got into quite a few boils but didn't seem to be tossing the right baits as we only caught two. Oh, well it was fun as always.
      City: Concord

  • Shasta County
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      Water Temp: 84

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: At the lake for our annual week-long vacation. It was a weird week to say the least. We normally pull alot of fish off main lake points, but got very few there this trip. Also noticed that all the hits came very close to shore. Nearly every fish we caught was puking up crawdads, so of course, we switched to crawdad imitations, but things were still very slow. We also noticed that because of the rapid drawdown, the crawdads along shore by our houseboat were very active all the time...we could look off the front of the boat and see them moving any time of the day. We finally devised a tactic where we would find a rocky stretch of shoreline (not necessarily near a point), and pull the boat in parallel to the shore, hold in about 6-8 feet of water, then cast parallel to the bank. We started catching more fish, mostly on plastics & shad imitations. Never caught a fish worth bragging about (lots of dinks), but did get maybe a dozen or so in the 2-3 lb. range.
      City: Fernley

      Tips: Work shallow along rocky, gently sloping shorelines with plastics and shad imitations (I did pretty good twitching a fluke on a darter head, my buddy caught most of his on a Mystic Shad-R). Best times seemed to be right before dark, or early morning before the sun hit the water.