Northern California Lake Fishing Report

Limit:

Saturday, July 30th, 2005

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      Water Temp: SURFACE 78

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: A.M. TOP WATER, BABY ZARA SPOOK, BABY TORPEDO, LUCKYCRAFT SAMMY 65, IN THE CANYONS AND DOWN BY THE DAM. UP RIVER ON STEEP ROCKY BANKS AND TREES. RIP BAITS TROUT PATTERNS, SPINNER BAITS CLEAR/WHITE/SILVER...3/8 TO 5/8 OZ. SINGLE WILLOW BLADES...........WORMS ROBOWORM HOLOGRAM SHAD.
      GOOD LUCK.........JIGS
      City: LA GRANGE

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      Water Temp: 75+

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: caught over 40 fish all night. took home 20 14" cats. no striper action in back of refuge by parking lot 5. bugs weren't too bad. had a nice outing.
      City: fresno

      Tips: used stink bait shallow on mud flats in slough.
      dip 3" lure in stink bait cast out 25-30 yrds off bank. wait 15 min dunk bait again bites came fast and would last about 20 min at a time.

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      Water Temp: ??Very Warm??

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished the middle fork from Saturday till Monday. Three of us probably boated well over 50 fish. All spots and two smallies. Only four or five of them were over the slot. The biggest fish were caught early in the morning and late in the evening in shade pockets. All fish were caught on rattle traps, dropshotted oxblood robo worms, and c-rigged oxblood robos. The biggest was 17" and it was caught on the blue-chrome rattle trap at first light. Non-stop action until the sun hits the water. Lots of small fish though some no bigger than my rattle trap. Bigger fish were in deeper water 20 feet or more and shade, shade, shade. Have fun!!
      City: Napa

      Tips: Find the shade. Get up early or fish late.

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      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: first time to this lake, I'm not sure if I fished Rainbow or Horseshoe. Caught 2 bass in the late afternoon. I was fishing the shadows. First bass came on a brown/purple carolina rig worm, the second came on a white splash it popper.Both were released in great shape. I wish I had more time to exlore this lake.
      City: salida

Friday, July 29th, 2005

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      Water Temp: 74

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: My friend and I took a guide trip with Randy Pringle and had a great day. We caught between 60 and 70 fish for the day. All fish caught were on reaction baits. We even tried a new bait coming out on the market that really drove the fish wild. Even when they missed it or dropped it, they would hit it again. Randy really understands the delta and the tides. He put us on fish all day, while constantly providing knowledge on how to do it ourselves. To check out this new bait or to have a great day on the water and gain some knowledge of the delta, give Randy a call. We have already booked a couple of more trips with him.
      City: Suisun

      Tips: To gain better knowledge of the delta waterways and the tidal system, book a guide trip. I would highly recommend Randy Pringle.

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      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Thanks pfc for your great advice. We'll fish the productive areas that you said were good.
      City: antioch

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      Water Temp: ?

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Anybody know whats workin' out there and know where the bass are?
      City: antioch

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      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: it seem like nobody send a report from fishing from shore, Ok I did fish from shore almost one day a week every week with good results.I did catch limits of Largemouth bass 2-5 pounds,using plastic worms riged either texas or carolina rig
      City: Winchester,CA

      Tips: you has to be early in the morning, and work all the shore until find a good spot, stick to it,cast in every direcction to cover the whole shore.

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      Water Temp: 80-84

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished Friday July 29th with my friend Wogg and his wife for stripers. Got on the water about 7:30 am and found decent activity on the boils. They had the tendancy to not stay up long though. We wound up with three stripers in the boat. Tried to be as stealthy as possible but just couldn't get to some boils. Found some action around the lake on spooks for bass. Tons of little bass around. Looks great for next year. Water is the highest I have ever seen it there. Most of the main parking lot is underwater.
      City: Concord, CA

      Tips: We used bass assasin plastics to catch the stripers and spooks to catch some largemouth.

Thursday, July 28th, 2005

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      Water Temp: 81

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: I got to Calero around noon, decided to brave the heavy boat traffic and fish the submerged island in the middle. The top of the island is around 8feet deep, I fished the shoulders in around 12-14 feet with 7 inch/texas/pumkinseed worms. I stayed busy with over a dozen clones around 2lbs within an hour until the Ranger booted me from the "Traffic" zone. I hit the shoreline and didn't get bit for two hours.
      Before leaving I decided to pitch the shallow weedlines with a Pumkinseed Hulla Grub and Finally...after 8 years of Bass fishing fairly seriusly caught a double digit Bass.(((It went 10.26 lbs ))). Totally stoked, but no camera...I called over a bass boat...he reweighed it 10.26 and then took a picture. Awesome day...still feeling all good. Mr. Davis.........PLEASE POST PICTURE, or send me an email. I'll make it worth the effort. Thanks dude
      City: Morgan Hill

      Tips: That one time you don't have a Camera...will Kill Ya. Bring one

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      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Zack,
      PLEASE... OK hot dogs are great...STOP...bomber's...mustard is spicy...senkos.??. rangers.gotta....POSTING>..love. drop shot??...>> wilderness is nice...bigfoot, whatever...crank bait lip,wiggle wiggle...dinks
      You make no sense at all!!!
      City: Morgan Hill

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      Water Temp: 73-77

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished the past 4 days on Disappointment and White slough. Caught three over 7lbs, two 6lb, and too many to count in the 3lb to 5lb range(over 30 fish in this range), some smaller fish but a lot more decent fish than little fish caught. Lost one fish that was easily over 12lbs but it broke the line when it ran out into the open water. Also caught some stripers that were chasing the little fish in the tule pockets which was a surprise to me seeing the stripers in the tules. Fish seemed to have schooled up in some places and appear to be everywhere. Thousands of little fish were everywhere in large schools.Used senko and spinnerbait. Best 5total for the whole week was over 30lbs. Best 5total in one day was on Tuesday with 24lbs
      City: stockton

      Tips: Fish located in tules, along weeds, rocks, and everywhere. Strangely the time of day or tide did not matter. Used senkos and spinnerbait. Senko produced a much larger quantity of fish than the spinnerbait. Tried buzz and frog with little success.Senko,senko,senko,then maybe spinnerbait.

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      Water Temp: 75

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished Dissapointment, white slough and mildred -Vixen and frog bite was on in the morning - followed by a senko and brush hog bite on the outgoing. Top 5 close to 14lbs - big fish (5 lber) hit vixen on tule point.
      City: Sacramento

      Tips: Dead stick that frogee in open water

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      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Went out on wed., got there late/driving from san carlos. Got on the water around 8:00am, drove around a point and looked for some exposed rocks. Threw "yo-zuri" cranks in shad patterns===7 fish.....200yrds. Had to run back to the launch to go to the bathroom and met a guy with a 2005? ranger z21....great looking boat... he gave me some advice. go to the tules and flip white frogs... I had no frogs so I fliped everything else, jigs, worms, grubs... 2 fish... Went out searching for a good spot(some more exposed rocks) got on a piece of shorline with no docks. It was about 500yrds of shorline.... caught 32 lmb,,, biggest was 8 lbs smallest was 2.5 lbs......WOW!!!!!
      Was burning up in the sun(around 2:00pm) and headed back to the ramp. On my way I stoped off at to docks and tossed cranks and worms and caught 10 more in 100yrds of shoreline...WOW!
      I am from arizona and have never experienced fishing like this, I have been to lake fork, Okechobee, Ten killer, Kentucky lake, etc...... This place was unbelievable............
      City: glendale, az

      Tips: Caught the majority of my big fish with--- 7" texas rig culprit worms with curly tails in dark purple with green flakes......

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      Water Temp: 80

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: fished the 28 and 29. Fishing was spectcular, finished both days with limits going 18pds, with 25 to 50 fish. No huge fish, best big fish going 4.3, but had 3 of them. All where caught on blades and senko's and drop-shot, mostly on steep drop offs and changing flats, with shad all over them.
      City: Royal Oaks, CA

      Tips: Slow rolling spinner baits until wind dies, at steep drop offs and changing flats, in chart./white, and white with big blades. Switch to senko's and drop-shoting, where schooling shad are, and fish right in front of the cover, or out in the deeper water underneath the schools.

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      Water Temp: NA

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: What day do you plan to go tubing in there, I'm planning to go there this friday or maybe Sat. I know that this is a good spot for tubing, let me know when I might see you there.
      City: SF

      Tips: drop shot and top water swimbait will be productive

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      Water Temp: 72 Degrees

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: I was out yesterday and boy the fish were tough to get so...... when the going gets tough then throw swimbaits. 8" swimbaits was the key for me yesterday and I tell ya throwing swimbaits for 6 hours straight will put a beatin on you. I caught 3 bass in a matter of the six hours i fished but they wern't small. The first fish weighed in at 7.2lbs, 5.1lbs, 8.4...
      City: San Jose

      Tips: I was throwing 8" offspreys rainbow trout and caught the 8.4lbs and castaic 8" rainbow trout and caught the other 2. Use a moderete retreive and find the breaks with your depth finder

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      Water Temp: 79-83

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: This is a 3-in-1 report from the Western States Police and Fire Olypics held July 28-29.
      July 27 (PREFISH DAY)- My partner, Brian Whitney & I go looking for backup water and instead found a prime Folsom summer time hump near Browns Ravine. Had a BIG Spot follow up a Spook before she turned away. Good thing, I didn't want to stick her the day before the tournament. we found some other areas holding lots of fish, but not alot of size to them.
      July 28th (DAY 1 INDIVIDUAL COMPETITION)- For this day I drew Amillio Mantua from Stockton Fire and we immediately went to the hump I found the previous day and that BIG Spot BLEW UP on a buzzbait, but failed to get steel in her mouth. Never saw her again, but managed to put together a meager limit of 4-fish weighing 4.66 lbs. which was good enough for 22nd place out of 110 individuals. Dropshotting ended getting all of our fish for the day as Amillio had the bigger bag weighing 5.45 I believe.
      JULY 29TH (DAY 2 TEAM COMPETITION)- Paired back with Brian, we headed straight for the hump and threw buzzbaits, spooks and ripbaits for about 45 minutes. Brian lost a good fish on a Pointer MR early, and with another boat on the hump we decided to leave and let the area rest from all of the attention it was getting. I dropshotted a small keeper over on Mormon Island and lost a good buzzbait fish. We made a couple of other moves with no results, so we decided to get back to our hump as there had not been a boat on it for about an hour. I picked up my confidence bait, a 1/4 oz. darthead w/ a 4.5" Robo worm and began to work all of the deeper points coming off of this hump. After about 20 minutes I hook-up and land a 2.7 lb. Spot followed by a 1.8 lb. Spot. Soon after I get a 2.6 lb. Spot and Brian gets our limit fish, a 1.6 lb. Spot. Another 10 minutes and Brian seals our day with an absolute beautiful 3.8 lb. Folosm summer Largemouth. Soon after I land a 2.0 lb. Spot and we then had the limit we ended up weighing which was 12.5 lbs. All of our fish were caught either Dartheading or Dropshotting water in the 25 - 50 ft. range on points coming off of the hump we were fishing.
      END RESULT- We took the GOLD medal and Brian took the BIG FISH GOLD for the team competition with his 3.8 lb. Largey.
      City: Roseville

      Tips: Pretty typical Folsom in that the bigger fish were following the shad & smelt in deeper water. Although the fish were up shallow very early, they didn't stay there long and moved off to the sides of the hump once the sun was up. Dropshot & darthead 4.5" worms in Shad patterns for the best results.

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      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: So you say you want to drive the 10 miles of dirt road to get to one of the most secluded, beautiful empoundments in northern CA that is free of jet skiers and personal watercraft. Well the Eman wanted to go and I hadn't been there in 20 years and yes, the road is still as rough and dirty as I remember and we had to change his flat truck tire before launching. Easy to find submerged trees and working them with a Sweet Beaver (they ain't seen many of them)and jig, we immediately got on fish. That along with ripping, we must have boated over 20 in the 1-2 lb range but that wasn't what we went there for. We finally located some nice fish and landed a nice 4.3 and 3.8 largie and some nice 2-3 lb smallies. We would have had a 14+ bag for our best 5 and then decided it was time to go and you better believe that on a 10 MPH lake, your boat pushes a lot of water and we were concerned about making it back on the big motor.......but did. At the store I asked why no bass photos were posted and he said we just don't give him any so I'll be sending some his way. They do have a pic of the lake record 180 lb sturgeon! So if you don't mind a little dust on boat, truck and all your gear, keep your boat cover on and have a nice pressure washer ready upon getting home. It was a beautiful day with no other boats and the lake is still as picture perfect as I remember and lots of nice fish. I will have to plan another trip next spring.
      City: Wheatland

      Tips: Jigs and beavers were the ticket. We were using a brown/orange 3/8 oz jig and the effective beaver was a darker one, not lighter colors like pumpkin seed. This time of year, stick close to the submerged trees in 20-30 and shake the crap out of it and they will munch it.

Wednesday, July 27th, 2005

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      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: went out yesterday using spinnerbaits and drop shot. didn't get any action by the boat dock. went over to the east side on the rocks and missed a few bites and saw some big bass jumping. i caught a couple decent ones on the island later in the day off drop shot. my friend got some off the handicap dock on spinnerbaits. i got most of my bites in deeper, darker water. if your on a tube, you might want to try the east side by the rocks or the north side of the island by the tules and weeds on the surface, it will probably be a good frog area.
      City: oakley

      Tips: i did so bad a have no tips.