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Northern California Lake Fishing Report

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Saturday, March 27th, 2004

  • Butte County
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      Water Temp: 56-59

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Went fishing this morning at 5:30 and tried fishing Parish Cove, Vinton Gulch and Spring Valley. Did well in all of them. Fish were slammin the senko rigged texas without a wieght. Spotted a big bass in the shallows at Parish Cove she had to be at least 8 pounds. I tried to get her to bite but she wasn't sticking around to see what I had to offer. For once I caught more largemouths than spots! That's a nice change once in a while but it doesn't happen much. For me anyway.
      City: paradise

      Tips: I'm not sure if the color matters too much on the senkos. I had fish bite every color I tried. ( I stayed away from bright colors ) I had only one srike on a jerkbait but by the way those bass were boiling on the shad I'm sure that you can catch some nice fish on them if you stick with it. Fish shallow!

    • By

      Water Temp: Not Tested

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Hi I'm a regular fisherman on a this lake both for bass and trout but I found out I got more skills or Luck on trout I wanna start Volunteer fishing Instruction to the beginner or just starting to get into fishing specially young kids 16 below some adults are welcome too and you have to have your parents permission be doing it every weekend Saturday mostly If you know a group or any clubs who want to join please drop me an email and be glad to help
      if I'm gonna have enough people then I'll Start
      City: San Francisco

      Tips: I'll tell you when we guys meet

    • By

      Water Temp: 60-65

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Tubed the main back pond saturday from 7 to noon. Pulled 5 bass out with best 17 1/2 inches and pretty fat. One was a 12 incher the rest around 14 to 15 . Used Pumpkin with purple/green flake with chartrouse tails 5 ich senkos. Great day on the water, a little overcast . The bite is starting to pick up..
      City: Dublin

      Tips: If you have a tube just fish about 20 yards from the bank and throw towards all tullies , logs and tree cover..Good luck to all
      Happy Anglin

  • Shasta County
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      Water Temp: 54

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: well, sat was the day of my derby at sugarloaf cottages up the sac arm, and i had fun, except for having my engine die and i came in like 3rd to last place. Caught fish on worms, and brush hogs, one of the brush hog fish had a crawfish in its mouth, so i guess they want crawfish now. it was real cold, and horrible weather on fri, so the fish turned off almost. anyways work the rip rap and steep banks.

      Tips: brush hogs, and brown green worms are best now, fish will pick up later with warm weather. good luck

    • By

      Water Temp: 56-59

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: For my 14 b-day got up early and headed out to packers bay. launched at 7:30 and headed over to waters gultch on the sac arm. first ten minutes picked up a few dinks. around 8:30 it picked up caught about 9 fish within 1 hour all weighing over 1 1/2 pounds on my new favorite shad colored grub/worm thing.(ha). Headed up the arm a little further and found some bigger steep rocky slopes. within the first 30 min i had caught three fish pushing 2 1/2 on the same bait then caught the best smallie i have in a while, a nice 3 pounder off a rocky point. then went up to the sugar loaf area and landed my personal best bass at shasta a huge 4 1/2 pound prespwan spott. that just made my b-day.
      City: Redding

      Tips: There are fish everywhere off steep rockey banks and points suspended in about 25-30 feet. today they were taken shad colored anything. the is NO STRIKE the line just gets very heavy. its great fishin.

  • Sonoma County
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      Water Temp: 58

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Heard how easy the bass fishing was and had to give it a try.Got up to the lake around 06:30 and was surprised by the rain. It only lasted an hr or so, but at least there wasn't wind. My good friend and I fished from 06:30 until 14:00. His frist 2 casts produced 2 bass,even before I was done rigging.After about 10 fish, we decided to photo all the bass we caught. We ended up with 49 bass, smallies and largmouth. Only 5 were dinks, most were males in the 2 lb range, but we did get some up to 7 lbs. Even caught one while putting the boat on the trailer. Over all, if you want to catch a lot of bass, now is the time to take a kid fishing. All the fish were in less than 8'. We did try Yorty, and in 2 hrs of fishing we only managed to get 5 bites, so we went back out on the main lake. It seemed that if there wasn't any mossy weed, we caught fish.Wood,rock and chunk rock with a flat produced best.
      City: Santa Rosa

      Tips: Release any females caught. Put on sunblock BEFORE fishing. Use barbless hooks.Used watermelon senkos w/blk flake and red flake (2 dif colors). Fish wood, rock and roads in less than 8'. Fish no moss.Take a lot of pictures. Have a great time. email me if you want more info.

    • By

      Water Temp: N/A

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Float tubing from 3PM to 6PM. Caught one trout and two bass. The trout hit a 1/2 ounce Rat-L-Trap that I intended to fish for bass. What an aggressive trout! Continued fishing the Rat-L-Trap for half an hour with no hit. Switched to Senko and caught two bass (6 and 12 inch).
      City: Palo Alto

  • Trinity County
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      Water Temp: 51+

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished with a couple of Sacto gents today and found the fishing pretty slow. But as often happens, the bites we did get were quality fish. Topped by a pair fo 3.5 smallies. Never touched a LM go figure.
      City: Weaverville

      Tips: Fish were caught on Model A's, gitzits, and darthead worms, all in approx 6'.

  • Shasta County
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      Water Temp: 57-61

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: went out to Whiskeytown for my first tubing trip there in over a month..got in at the second pond heading west on 299 at 11 am..fished till 3:00..got 5 fish at the second pond on a pointer 78 ghost pattern..I think the key was fishing it on really light line(6 Lb)got a limit for 7-8 lbs..with two 2+ spots..noticed some beds that were vacant some fish have already done their thing..best fish came on steep banks..but also got fish on the slower tapering banks..The water is schedueled to come back up around the 15th of april..
      City: Redding

      Tips: small Lucky craft rip baits..and splitshot too...lots of weeds so its very hard to jig...Go to Phils and we will hook ya up with what ya need...

Friday, March 26th, 2004

  • Yuba County
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      Water Temp: 57-61

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: I guided a father-son team Saturday that wanted to learn some new techniques of worm fishing. It started off kind of slow, but by 10 am the fishing really picked up - or the folks just got better!! We found a school or two of largemouth and spots and landed 17 of them, mostly split-shotting 4 and 6 inch worms by Berkley and Camanche Jack. Our largest bass was 2 lbs 6 oz. Green pumpkin, junebug, and morning dawn seemed to be the best colors. I think we got one on a ripbait early. We tried cranking some with no results. We found fish quite shallow in a few coves - as shallow as 5 feet. They did seem to be near brush. Two large bass followed one of their worms right to the boat but turned at the last minute. We also used #221 and #222 5" Senkos. While it was a cool day - a post front day with the sun coming out at 9 am - the wind wasn't a problem until the end of the trip. I think they will do well in the future - they said they learned a lot about the lake and how to fish it.
      City: Yuba City

      Tips: Be very aware of your jigs and worms and what is happening under the water. Many of our "bites" were not bites at all. A few of the bass were on without us knowing it. Spring bites can be very subtle. If you are in doubt - set the hook!! Very slow presentations still seemed to work the best. Big bass are still deeper and have not moved up yet. April should be the month.

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

      Report: I haven't fished Trinity in quite awhile. Is there a boat dock at the dam ramp?
      City: Redding

    • By

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: I haven't fished Trinity in quite awhile. Is there a boat dock at the dam ramp?
      City: Redding

Thursday, March 25th, 2004

  • Mason County
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      Water Temp: 58

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished the storm, It rained all afternoon, but the bite was on. Stade out of the main lake and went in the coves. Fished for about 4 Hrs and my partner and I caught 12 bass all around 1 Lb. Caught 1 on a spinner bait and the rest on crank baits. it started to poor so we called it a day.
      City: Morgan Hill

      Tips: Fish are starting to move up. we caught most our fish in aboput 2 ft. of water. use dark colored c-baits in the coves.

  • Napa County
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      Water Temp: 62-64

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished yet another guide trip on this little jewel in the storm yesterday out of Markley Cove. The jig bite first thing in the morining was awesome and held up till the rains started. 1/2 oz Brown purple football head jig with small 101 pork chunks. We caugh all three species up to four pounds being the biggest largmouth of the morning. A bunch of largemouth have move shallow, but are not yet on beds. We did see a number of BIG smallies on beds as well as a few BIG spots up cruising the shalows. We ventured up to the south portion of the main lake when it started to rain at around 11:00. We then commenced to put a clinic on the largemouth with a C-rig'd Zoom Lizard. Wow, cast after cast after cast, they would yank that green pumkin lizard dang near out of our hands. I think most of these were bucks that have began there shallow movement and were just feeding like crazy. Was purty cool,of the 35-50 fish we caught, best 5 went between 14-15 pounds today. Still no big fish, yet I know there in here! So I'm going back to the River for 5 days of guiding! [grins]
      City: Oakley

      Tips: Start looking for the fish to be shallow. Areas with big flats from 3-10' are holding hordes of largemouth. For smallies, look for that yellow pebble rock banks, especially long flat submerged points, there will be 3-6 smallies on every point. The spots just seem scattered everywhere.

    • By

      Water Temp: 64-67

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Invasion of the largemouth!! That is the story of a rapidly clearing Berryessa. The water is clear enough now to see a few fish moving around, although we did not see any big bass up yet. A regular client and I caught nearly 60 bass yesterday - non-stop action. We fished near the Ranch House, and from Spanish Flat to Pope Creek. While many of those fish were small largemouth, our tournament keepers (above 13") went something like this: 32 largemouth, 10 smallmouth, and only 2 spots. Our best five were all largies from 2-1 to 2-10, close to 12 pounds. As I mentioned, lots of largemouth from 6 to 10 inches - great to see! The crankbait bite slowed for us - we caught only three. One great thing happened - I threw a rip bait in the back of a cove. Before I could twitch it - off it went - I set and a 2 1/2 lb largemouth came a foot out of the water. Ah, winter is over!! We settled on split-shotting and dragging 4 to 6 inch worms and lizards. Senkos worked too. I used Berkley, Yamamoto, and Camanche Jack worms in several colors. My client brought some Zoom cotton candy lizards and that was the hot bait for about a half hour. Eventually he wanted to use some of my Berkely pulse worms - they were red hot. Don't forget camo color - it works! I threw swimbaits for awhile and even some topwater in the morning. No takers. We found that we had to wait a second or two to get a good hookset. If we set too quickly, we missed a lot of them. That is certainly true of Berryessa when night fishing! It was a much more beautiful day than we anticipated. Great fishing and great weather don't often go together! We both enjoyed the solitude - only saw 6 or 7 boats of any kind all day. I love it!!
      City: Yuba City

      Tips: We found fish on points, but the majority have started to move to the back of coves or to secondary points. We caught fish from 5 to 20 feet of water. Many points at Berryessa have flats before they drop to deep water. Those are the best staging areas for big bass. I think there will be a good movement of bigger fish during the next full moon. A return to winter (it is pouring rain as I write this) could change this however.

  • Solano County
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      Water Temp: 62-64

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: What a great day, windy and rainy after 3 weeks of nice weather. Went out of Lundborg at 10:30amback at 4:30pm and caught 40 and missed maybe 20 bass all but one on blades. Three different blades in the stained water I used a Wht/Wht 1/2 oz Persuader w/white blades or a 1/2 cht/Wht Assassinater and in the clearer water I used the Souther shad assassinater. About 3/4 of the fish were on ambush points , poiint cuts or most any placed the current broke through or was rerouted. I caught a fish about ever 8 minutes and burned maybe 3 gallons of gas. Some fish came from rocks and all of these were post spawn and skinny. Then the rest were near tules, sparse tules some were post and some were pre spawn.
      City: Concord

      Tips: I started with the southern shad blade and was missing and losing fish when I switch to the wht/wht I was getting a much better hook up ratio.

    • By

      Water Temp: 65

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Launched out of Paradise Point at the top of the tide. Fished Dissapointment Slough 'til noon. Seemed like the approaching front helped turn the appetites on. Caught 6 bass with the best 5 weighing 15 lbs. One of my better days on the Delta.
      All fish were caught on or very near a break into 10 ft of water.
      All were caught on a Reaction Innovations Boom Tube in Waterbug color.
      City: Manteca

      Tips: All bites were very subtle. A "tic" in the line, or the line moving off to the side. I didn't feel the pick up on any of them.

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

      Report: I need help fella's! Going up to Clear Lake for a week starting next week. I would really appreciate any tips/suggestions/etc-maybe what your favorite lures are or which part of the lake would be a good place to try? I have only fished it once and allthough I did well anything will help! Thanks and Tight Lines!
      City: Chowchilla,CA

      Tips: ???

Wednesday, March 24th, 2004

    • By

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Fished Camp Far West Wed. Caught about 15-20 fish in about 4 hrs of fishing. I caught about 10 early on ripbaits in the river arm. I caught the rest sight fishing in the shallow coves. All sight fish were small males about 2 pounds or so. I saw a few beds but I caught a few males who were cruising shallow looking to make beds. Wherever i saw tree stumps there seemed to be a male nearby locked onto it. I caught them on small darthead worms after annoying them for a while. I released all fish so they could get back to making nests. No big fish but a lot of fun watching the bass eat your lure.
      City: YUBA

      Tips: A pair of polarized glasses is a must for sight fishing. Also releasing fish is very important this time of year. Good Luck.

    • By

      Water Temp: 61-67

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Getting better everyday. I fished thursday in the stubborn wind the blew all day. Boated 8 fish to about 5lbs..hooked and unbuttoned the same big fish not once but two times.She railed me both times in very deep in cover. made me sick, especially since I was expecting her to bite the second time.

      This lakes a little slow to get going and the best fishing here is yet to come. Water color is still on the brown side but fishable.
      City: San Jose

      Tips: jigs. big and bulky