Northern California Lake Fishing Report

Limit:

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005

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      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Wuz on the water @ 0530 Packers went up the Mac deep caught a few on points with crank no big uns went into coves uzed darts with Robos few 2s no big uns back out up Squaw steep rock uzed new bait like beaver just runts grubbed a few 2s spinned a few one nice4+ no more rip and top pop a few no big uns getin dark crank a few and bam a big un no scale but 7+ out a time saw a huge fish of some kind roll HUGE just before we started the motor HUGE don't know? looked like a whale rollin Butcher out.
      City: Redding

      Tips: take camera always take toilet paper always

Monday, May 2nd, 2005

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      Water Temp: 68-72

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: The bass fishing really turns on at about 4:00p.m. Throw senkos right up close to the bank in rock creek and let it fall. Watch for any line movement or any ticks set the hook as early as you can though or else the bass will swallow the hook. Use dark colors. Bass were in the 1-3 lb range. The blue gill fishing has also turned on. I got a lot of .5- 1 lb gills.
      City: cv

      Tips: fish low and dark senkos

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      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Fish Breath ARE YOU A MONG

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      Water Temp: 65-68

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Another solid day on delta. No real big fish, but a lot of solid quality. several 2.5 to 3.5 fish, w/ very few dinks. Like Lee bros., I also believe that most fish spawned out, some of the fish I caught would have went to about five or six lbs., but were spawned out. Great day on water.
      City: Turlock

      Tips: red/blk plastic's produced for me all day.

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      Water Temp: 63.5

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Best day on the delta for us so far this year. Got on the water first ight outta paradise and headed towards franks' hitting tules along the way with blades.Had a couple big threes early on and really steady numbers all day.Got to franks' with 15+ pounds and then we started hitting afew 4s and one 6.3 all on blades and beavers. Finished with just over 21 pounds,35+ total.
      City: PLACERVILLE

      Tips: fish deep tules when tide is out

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      Water Temp: 71.5

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Started in the Rock creek area in 10-15' of water dragging 6" Zoom lizards behind a florocarbon leader. Picked up 15+ fish within 100 yards. Went to the dam and threw Bass Assasins on ultra light gear and got hit nearly every cast, had a ball with the 1-1.5 lb fish. Headed up into the river and tossed cranks on the cliff walls and got into sone bigger fish, averaged 2.5-3.5 with Firetiger J6 Rapala's, not as many fish, but much bigger. Have fun and take a couple small ones home !
      City: ROSEVILLE

      Tips: Smaller line or Florocarbon will increase catch rates !

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      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Had an unbelieveable day cathing somewhere around 40 BASS within 4 hours. Fished from 4pm till 8pm using only one lure, THE FLUKE. The fish were stacked anywhere around points, and trees. The average was about a 1 to 1 1/2 pounds with the biggest being 2.5 to 3 pounds on the "air" Boga Grip.
      City: Folsom

      Tips: Use Jerk Baits and work them extremely fast. I was literally ripping them on top of the water, and the fish would just blow them up.

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      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Zach, yes boats are allowed on the lake. You can rent boats as well. ELECTRIC power only. Kayaks are ok also. Whats not permitted is float tubes, and sail boats. You want to head towards Felton, in Felton, get on Graham hill rd (towards santa Cruz) left onto Zayante rd. Follow Zayante rd past quailhollow road( up about 1.5 - 2 miles) to E Zayante rd. (it'll be a left at a Y) then follow the signs to the lake. The road into the lake gets narrow at times and downhill traffic sometimes is going too fast, Be cautious when approaching some of the uphill turns.
      Small aluminum boats are easy to get in, but I'd say anything bigger than 18' you'll have to pay attention. I've seen Ranger boats on the lake so it can be done.
      City: Scotts Valley

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      Water Temp: 64

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: I guided a client from Minnesota today, who wanted to fish a beautiful, peaceful lake. Pardee was the choice - and a good choice it was! We started at 11:30 am and we were the last ones to leave! We had a slight north wind and post-front conditions, so daytime fishing was fair. We caught 5 largemouth and 4 smallmouth before sunset, mostly on points, using watermelon/red flake small brush hogs, and two 2+ pounders were caught on a Rodstrainer jig. Most of out fish were caught from 10 to 25 feet. We looked for beds but had a hard time with the wind. After sunset, we fished main lake points. I was using my brown/orange 3/8 oz Redstrainer with #180 Yami grub, when my line got heavy. It moved to the top of the water and something that looked like the mouth of a crocodile rose out of the water. I couldn't believe my eyes!!! After a struggle, he netted a fat, pre-spawn female that weighed 9 lb 6 oz. After photos (westernbass - photos), we put her back where she was sure to spawn in a day or so. I think the man from Minnesota must have had eyes as big as the "toad". They don't see many of those up there! Hoping my client would come through with one of his own, he soon sets with his brush hog. I knew right away I better get the net and soon a 3 lb 2 oz smallmouth was in! Wow, an 18 1/4 lb limit at Pardee. We had big smiles as we pulled the boat out!
      City: Yuba City

      Tips: This was an interesting day in that we had so many bass follow our baits or take a swipe at them, but wouldn't connect. I threw topwater a lot but no takers. I looked at the lure once and saw 5 bass following the lure - just looking at it. Post-front could have been the answer. Luckly our big one did more than look!!

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      Water Temp: 60-63

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: I did catch 5 fish on a popper,the fish the other guy is talking about have to be little,i let it sit right over the green bush in water.i caught bigger fish in the brown sticks with a crappie jig and caught my biggest fish near a booey,it was BIG.red worms plastic work good i dont know the other stuff but my dad says if you can do neighborhood watch at night in jones valley and do nothing but get drunk and steal peoples stuff then your a perfect canidate for a security job at a kmart or maybe work in a carwash.but he says anyway you look at it they are stealing from americans i am learning alot from all of you
      City: Anderson

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      Water Temp: 55 - 60

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished the entire week (5/2 - 5/7) with my "old" team partner from So.Cal, Carl Richards. We had to fisht the elements most of the week, but fishing, as usual, was good to red-hot. But there definitely times when the bite was tough. The key was getting on the soft bite`, even with jigs.

      We fished with John Gray on 5/3; what a super trip. Though fishing was rated fair at best, we were there to learn his techniques that have made him so successful on the lake. But I'll tell you John, it was sure nice to use my bait casting gear after our trip :-) Super guy, great lunch and though we have fished the lake for fifteen years now, we still learned a lot... Thanks John.

      The rest of the week was catching lots of smallmouth and largemouth just short of 4#. We fished south of Trinity Center on Saturday and did as well as we did in the north learning more new areas. And even in the rain and wind, we had some fast and furious flurries.
      City: Eureka, CA

      Tips: Jigs and pro worms

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      Water Temp: 56

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished with a client from Redding. Launched at Trinity Center @0530 started at the ball park I caught thee fish there all ripped 1.5 to 3.5.
      Crossed the lake to my favorite point,no bites went in the back of cove and ripped another 2.5 My client was having a hard time feeling the soft bite, Fished squirrel gluch for only one more but a good one at 4.5. My client was still having a hard time so I took him to look for bedfish up East Fork even when we could see the fish he could not get one. we ended up with 10 fish, the five best was 15.5 #. My client did'nt catch a fish so he is comming back another day for a free trip. out at 1400
      City: Redding

      Tips: fish are on there beds and really spooky

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      Water Temp: 60+

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished with a crew from Novato yesterday. I've mentioned that the fishing has been hot and cold and yesterday was somewhere in between. They didn't get a lot of bites but most of the ones they did get were special. Dad spent most of the day masterfully dragging a gitzit behind the boat and ended up with the first fish, a 3+ smallie, and later, the hat fish, a 5+ LM. John fished a Morning Dawn Pro Worm for big smallie of the day,a smallie well over 4, and pilot Bert kept us all in suspence all day by waiting until the last cast of the day to catch his 3+ smallie. Only 12-15 bites all day for the 3 of them, but their best 5 weighed over 19 lbs. Fishing Trinity can be a lot like police work, hours of boredom, punctuated by moments of sheer terror, followed by pure joy when that hog is finally in the net. Man I love my job.
      City: Weaverville

      Tips: Fish Trinity this week as those big releases which start at the end of the week are apt to mess things up for a couple of weeks.

Sunday, May 1st, 2005

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      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Float tubed around the lake for 8:30 am to noon and not a single bite. Used a drop shot w/ bungee worms, texas rigged power worms in various colors, and a couple of crank baits. There were 10-12 fisherman around the shoreline, a lot of fishing but no catching!
      City: Santa Clara

      Tips: I could use some!

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      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: fish are on beds big time on west side also starting to bedup good on eastshore but a little skidish if bedfishing is not your thing there is a ripbite.
      City: redding

      Tips: ghost and trout colors for ripbaits

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      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: fish are on beds big time on west side also starting to bedup good on eastshore but a little skidish if bedfishing is not your thing there is a ripbite.

      Tips: ghost and trout colors for ripbaits

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      Water Temp: 63-65F

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Hi,
      We caught 10 bass upto 2lbs, but had to work pretty hard for the fish. Watermelon lizard worked the best.

      Good luck
      Mark M

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      Water Temp: 71

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: on the water about 6:30 AM. Hardly any boats for a SAT. Started at north end, moved towards dam, and then sunken islands. My partner and I caught 16 over 13 inches up to 33/4 lbs. several 2-3. Mostly spots and some largemouth. Throwing 4" green weenies on 1/4 jig head or drop shotting. Caught the three biggest between noon and 1 and then went home. Great day.
      City: carmichael

      Tips: mostly pressure bites. Water super clear, vis over 10 ft. Went to six lb on light spinning rods.

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      Water Temp: 60-62

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Lots of action on crank & rip baits, mostly small males. I had what I think would have been my personal record on, along the west banks but my awesome 12 lb Flourocarbon P-Line decided to give way (I had just switched from 30 lb braid that morning), but I did get a visual (but that doesnt count). I was using a carolina rigged dirty sanchez colored beaver.
      City: Los Gatos

      Tips: Be patient- went all day saturday with no action at all, then sunday was the complete opposite.

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      Water Temp: 62-67

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Mistake, the below report was supposed to be for McClure not Pedro. Fished McClure sunday, Pdero saturday. Planned to fish Pedro both days, but it stunk for us so we went to McClure on sunday instead. Pedro on saturday, we tried everything with little success. Caught a few dinks first thing in the morning on flukes, but it slowed down to a halt after that, not even a decent plastics bite. I think only two fish after 8:00 a.m. Got those two on darter head reapers in 082, primary points.
      City: Hanford

      Tips: Go somewhere else 'til the water stabilizes.