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Northern California Lake Fishing Report

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Friday, August 20th, 2004

  • Sonoma County
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      Water Temp: 75

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Took the afternoon off work and headed to the lake around 1:30. I fished around mid-lake tossing a jig and a crankbait around some trees. Started out slow until I came upon a bare bank holding a lot of fish while cranking. Switched to a drop shot and caught several small bass, not much over a pound, but fun on 6 lb test. After several dinks, I headed down to the "S" turns and fished the rock banks and trees. Landed a few more on a jig and drop shot. As the sun started to set, I tried some top water, but no action, although I did have a couple blow ups on a frog over some weed. Off the lake by 8:00. Overall a great afternoon without too much boat traffic.
      City: Rohnert Park

      Tips: If you are looking for numbers, drop shot around the trees. Use your graph along the banks and when you start marking fish drop shot 4"-6" worms. Best colors were watermelon & pumpkin.

  • Calaveras County
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      Water Temp: ???

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Caught a bunch of bass (mostly smallies) using a chartreuse spinner, trolling live minnows (bigger minnow, bigger bass), nightcrawlers, crawfish, senko's, etc... You name it, they'll bite.

      Biggest fish was a smallie about 1.25 lbs. 3 of us on a boat caught about 20+ fish mostly in 30+ ft. of water in the evening before the sun came down.
      City: Hayward

      Tips: Work them slow.

Thursday, August 19th, 2004

  • Solano County
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      Water Temp: 78

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: The bite was good today on Franks,Sure hope we can maintain the quality for Saturday,white was the color of our frogs.Good Luck to all Saturday & Sunday.
      City: Brentwood

      Tips: Worked them fast,seemed more Blow ups came from areas where there was tules.

  • Sacramento County
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      Water Temp: 77-78

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished the rockpile and south fork from 4pm to sundown. Caught 8 fish, 6 keepers on Rat-L-Traps in shad colors. Tried blades and worms with no luck. All fish caught in south fork. Last cast in darkness produced 7 pound bass! My personal record.
      City: Fair Oaks

      Tips: Worms and blades not doin it for me lately. Rat-L-Trap in bleeding-shad/gold back pattern around rock piles, rocky shores and submerged humps worked for me. Who knows for how long, though.

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

      Report: I want to give a huge thank you to John Gray! I just returned from a weeks stay at trinity lake with my family. This was by far my best trinity lake experience yet. It started out with Mr. Gray and those fighting small mouths, i still cant believe how hard they fight. John was a great guide! I learned alot about the lake and fishing in general. The fishing remained good the rest of the week John, My biggest fish was a 4.5lb large mouth, right before dark on the point where that guide was you made reference to. My 3yr old caught her first smallmouth 2.5lbs. Again thank you John and cant wait to return to trinity lake.
      City: Fortuna

Wednesday, August 18th, 2004

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

      Report: A startling meeting on Monday 8-16-04 with the EPA, Dept of Agriculture, and East bay parks authorities has revealed the studies of Mercury in the lakes of the Bay area. Del Valle, Coyote, Chabot, Pablo, Etc. The mercury is becoming a big problem and at the meeting they recomended not eating any non planted fish out of the lake. WOW If the public eats too much of the fish health hazards will increase. I am not saying this because I am a big bass man I am stating what was said at the meeting. You anglers that take fish home need to read the handouts posted at the Marinas of all the Bay area lakes. This is not a joke
      City: Castro Valley

      Tips: Catch and release all fish & wash your hands at the cleaning stations

  • Lake County
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      Water Temp: 80

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: I took a boyfriend-girlfriend and his dad to Clear Lake yesterday for some good fishing (I hoped)! We were greeted with some early morning wind which surprised me and made guiding three a little more difficult. We actually started off a little slow in numbers and caught some smaller bass than I had seen for awhile. That was the only thing new - other that that the same baits worked - cranks, jigs, and split-shotting 8" Dead Ringer worms. I thought that might produce a bigger bass than drop-shotting. It did! We found red shad to be the best color. We fished several areas north and south of the narrows and did well for bass up to 3 1/4 lbs. I had given up on catching anything real decent until dad set on a fish at 1 pm with his red shad worm and it didn't come to the boat very quick. That was because she weighed 5 lb 11 oz - maybe his biggest bass ever. Thing were looking up and at 1:20 I set on my Weapon jig - Mad Man craw combo for a 4-2, right where I caught the 4 1/2 last week. Since the girlfriend caught the biggest at a previous Amador trip, the boyfriend had revenge on his mind. I was starting to put things away at the end of the trip while he still threw a crankbait (Norman deep little N). He hooked one that just headed out to sea. That is so exciting because one just doesn't know how big a crank fish is for awhile. She turned out to be 4 1/4 - not a monster but sure give us a good limit in the last hour - 20 1/4 lbs. Who needs to get up early, har?! We ended up with 50 to 55 bass - lost count!
      City: Yuba City

      Tips: I broke my own rule yesterday when guiding three people and let the two younger ones crank at the same time. They are very good casters and are very careful. While the crank bite is still good, I think it has slowed down as far as the size of the bass is concerned. Because of the water color, most of the bass are quite shallow. This also may be because there is more oxygen in shallow water. Had a new event in my boat - the young man had snagged up one of the crankbaits, so I gave him a brand new Norman crank. In the first few casts he hooks a big bass that breaks the lip where it meets the body. The bass didn't get hooked good so the lure floated up. There was the floating lure about 10 feet behind the floating lip attached to the line. That was a strange sight! Would love to have sighted the fish - we sure heard it!!

  • Alameda County
    • By

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: A startling meeting on Monday 8-16-04 with the EPA, Dept of Agriculture, and East bay parks authorities has revealed the studies of Mercury in the lakes of the Bay area. Del Valle, Coyote, Chabot, Pablo, Etc. The mercury is becoming a big problem and at the meeting they recomended not eating any non planted fish out of the lake. WOW If the public eats too much of the fish health hazards will increase. I am not saying this because I am a big bass man I am stating what was said at the meeting. You anglers that take fish home need to read the handouts posted at the Marinas of all the Bay area lakes. This is not a joke
      City: Castro Valley

      Tips: Catch and release all fish caught

  • Sacramento County
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      Water Temp: 80-81 deg

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: jim and justin and i fished the south fork from 4pm to dark using worms, blades, top water to find alot of dinks from 4" to 1 1/2 lbs on rocky points and steep banks. its nice to have all that 5 mph zone area to fish in with no lake lice. a hot day on the water with no large fish.
      City: rocklin

    • By

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Haven't fished this body of water for over a year, but do know that big crappies and big bass roam this place. Will definitely hit it up by years-end and post a good report.
      City: San Jose

      Tips: Got good fish on spinner-baits in shallow water relating to weeds and good fish on plastics by the dam.

    • By

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: A startling meeting on Monday 8-16-04 with the EPA, Dept of Agriculture, and East bay parks authorities has revealed the studies of Mercury in the lakes of the Bay area. Del Valle, Coyote, Chabot, Pablo, Etc. The mercury is becoming a big problem and at the meeting they recomended not eating any non planted fish out of the lake. WOW If the public eats too much of the fish health hazards will increase. I am not saying this because I am a big bass man I am stating what was said at the meeting. You anglers that take fish home need to read the handouts posted at the Marinas of all the Bay area lakes. This is not a joke
      City: Castro Valley

      Tips: Catch and release all fish caught. We may loose this lake forever due to the highest Mercury levels of all the surrounding lakes

  • Shasta County
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      Water Temp: 79.4

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: In at Packers at 0445, air temp 75, soft wind out of the north, started throwing right from the ramp but didn't get anything until i got out to packers point, tried everything and went back to my usual 1/2oz football head and B and S melon pepper twintail and finally managed one dink on the point right at the bank. Took off to have a look at the fire damage and turned into Jones valley to find total devastation. The only thing that didn't burn was the parking lot. The ramp was vacant however the Shasta Rec guy who stays on top of moving the ramps up and down arrived while I was there and he told me that the road into the ramp is now open. Lots of smoldering stumps still putting up some smoke but air quality was actually quite good. Ran up the pit to Arbuckle and Clickapudi,Blue and Dark canyons are wastelands with some stumps and spot fires still burning, above arbuckle things are ok. Not much boat traffic at all, only three houseboats tied up below arbuckle to Clickapudi. Silverthorn has most of their fleet tied up at the pier, Jones Valley's are still over in the McCloud and a lot of Bridge Bay boats are sitting un-rented. Looks like many people cancelled. Water color was surprisingly clear no doubt due to the lack of boats moving around. The Jones Valley ramp is down to a lane and a half and will be unusable within the week when it will be moved to the secondary ramp. It would not be wise to use Jones Valley with a strong northwind blowing as ther isn't much room to manuever around when you pull off the trailer, it is running out of water in a hurry.
      City: Redding

      Tips: fishing has been the pits, dinks only usually and not many of them.

Tuesday, August 17th, 2004

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

      Report: Caught 4 bass today. All small... Caught 2 fish on a senko. Another one on a spinnerbait. Managed several bites with a jig w/ yamamto grub in really deep water but I only got 1 bass off of that.
      City: Morgan Hill

  • Lake County
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      Water Temp: 76

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Well Mr. Hemphill filled you in on the weather side of things. Sunny, warm and a little windy. We used T-Rigged (1/2oz) plastics for my all time best of 29 lbs for 5 fish with a kicker of 11.02 lbs!!! Focus in the 10-12 foot range on tule points. It was my first time on the lake so I don't know exactly where we were, but were around the rattlesnake island area. 6 inch senko rootbeer

      Tips: 6-12 feet is where the active fish were.

  • Shasta County
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      Water Temp: 78

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: In at Packers at 6:30am. Fished around Packers Bay for the first hour or so with jigs and worms, zero. Looks like we should have went with Johnny Mac! Went for a ride to Jones Valley to see the damage the fire caused, WOW, most of Jones Valley, the boat ramp area all the way past Clickipudi Cove is toast. It has burned all the way to Blue Cyn. and beyond. It's going to be a muddy mess when it starts raining. The Blonde and I only managed 4 dinks for the morning. I think we'll go back to the night time, no boat traffic! Oh yes, the Blonde caught 3 of the dinks!!!
      City: Cottonwood

    • By

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched at Bridge Bay at 0500 and idled over to gucci row where some very nice houseboats are moored, picked up three clients off a brand new houseboat, they were from Nevada City, Grass Valley and San Francisco. Started them throwing cranks on the McCloud above Dekas Rock at 0530 while I threw my favorite top water, by 0730 we had caught and released appox. 50 spotted bass all in the 1.5 to 2.5 lbs class, these were very nice fish for the time of the year, at one time I had stop them from fishing and let me take the fish off there hooks as all four of us had a fish on at the same time. Needless to say I was very happy to see them have such a great time, as for me it was one of the best guide trips I've had. Off the water at 1000, What a great day
      City: Redding

      Tips: Early Morning Bite on Crankbaits for two hours then Jigs

Monday, August 16th, 2004

    • By

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: way to post reports i might be goin there soon.thanks for the report.

      ps i noticed were from the same city!!
      City: san bruno

  • Solano County
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      Water Temp: 75

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Last couple of weeks has been steady fishing. spinnerbaits, topwater(chug bugs, spooks, frogs), Crank baits all working at diffrent stages of the tide. Big fish was 8.5 on topwater.
      City: Sacramento

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

      Report: I have had some great guide trips in the last 2 weeks up hear, but who hasn`t. Some top water very early in the am then switching to cranks. Most of the better fish have been the suspended working bait out away from the bank. Worms and jigs are just on fire working them along breaks and deep docks.
      City: Sacramento

      Tips: Just go do it. Enjoy the great fishing even if they are not the 5 pluslb. fish you want. Those are still there to. They all have an 8 lb. attitude.

    • By

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Right on Ocean Beach when you get there go or park on sloat or further you'll see a bunch of fisherman there make sure you go there 2 hrs before incoming tide.
      City: San Francisco

      Tips: don't forget your motor oil color 2"-3" plastic grub they'll come handy and also bring something for strippers expect the unexpected!!! thight lines