blog-and-fishing-reports

April 6, 2011 California Delta

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 05:44:44 +0100

April 4, 2011 Folsom Reservoir

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 05:25:14 +0100

April 1-3, 2011 Clear Lake

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 05:18:57 +0100

March 31, 2011 Clear Lake

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 03:07:28 +0100

March 26-27, 2011 Lake Sonoma

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 07:25:00 +0100

Saturday Hank and I got on the water around 9am. Lake Sonoma came up about 10 feet since last time I was out here a couple weeks ago, and it was already at full pool then. There are submerged oak trees that are usually never it the water. All the storms we’ve had lately really muddied up the arms, but the main body still had around 3 foot visibility. Hank caught a three pounder first thing on a 3/8 oz jig with a smallie beaver. It came out of 20 feet of water on a rock pile near the marina. We went back into the warm springs arm and fished the running water from the creeks entering the lake. I caught a couple 2lbrs flipping a 5in white tube. Then Hank caught one around 4.5lbs one the jig. Some of the creeks had warmer (55 deg.), and clearer water coming in. Those were the ones that were holding the fish. We went back to the rock piles around the narrows and I caught a 2.5lb smallie on a 3in Dry Creek Tube. At this point in was about 3pm and we decided to make the run up north to see if our creek pattern would work there. After hitting about 20 creeks, we finally found one that looked good. I flipped the white tube all the way in the back and stuck one close to 9lbs, my largest out of Sonoma. By the end of the day we had around 22lbs for our largest 5 bass. Because of our success we decided to fish the Marine Unlimited Tournament on Sunday. It was cold and drizzly all day. We started off on a rock pile and caught a 1.5lb on a jig. We spent the next couple hours fishing rock piles, but only caught a couple short fish. We moved to the creek pattern, but I could tell that the air temp was too cold. The water coming in was the same temperature as the lake. We hit just about every damn creek in the lake, and finally at 1pm a caught a 5lbr on a Texas rigged Brush Hog. It was in the creek next to where I caught the 9lbr the day before. We continued to bounce around the lake fishing creeks, but had no luck. With about 5 minutes left, we were fishing right by the ramp, and caught a 2.5 lb smallie on a jig. 3 bass totaling 9.2 lbs was the total weight. I was quite disappointed with the results, but to my surprise, we still ended up finishing 6^th place out of 38 boats. Almost half the boats blanked and only a few caught 5 fish limits. Sunday was definitely a tough day, but with this warm weather we are getting this week, things should really start turning on!

March 22, 2011 Lake Berryessa

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 06:48:10 +0100

March 12-13, 2011 Clear Lake

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:44:28 +0100

Fished the Holder Ford Tourny at Clear Lake with Chris Z. Took 27th place out of 155 boats.

First day we stayed north and fished the mouths of sloughs with ripbaits, Dry Creek Tubes and LV500's. We weighed 24.9 lbs and caught around 15 bass that day.

Next day we caught a couple fish in the spots from the day before, and also flipped one on a jig in the keys, caught one on a ripbait in Konocti Bay, and flipped a few in Rodman Slough with a Brush Hog and a jig. Ended up catching 18.5 lbs that day.

February 26 & 28, 2011 Lake Sonoma

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:18:29 +0100

Saturday the 26 myself, and two other anglers, Nick and Steve, got to the Lake Sonoma at around 7am. We had post-frontal conditions, with partly cloudy skies and a light north wind. The water temp was 52 degrees with 2-4 foot clarity. Our first stop was a big flat with a few scattered rock piles, in the Warm Springs Arm. The bite was on, and in the first 20 minutes of the day we landed 7 bass, a mix of large-mouth and small-mouth. We fished 3/8 oz. jigs and Dry Creek Tubes fished in 15-25 feet of water. The key was to find those larger rock piles, and make sure to drag the bait as slow as possible. We put a few of the bass in the livewell, for pictures at the end of the day, and a couple crawdads got spit up. They were light brown with bright orange claws. We matched our jigs and tubes accordingly and worked our way through the narrows, stopping to fish any of the points that had rock. We picked up a few more small-mouth bass, all around 2lbs. From 10am-2pm, the bite got tough for us, we didn’t catch any bass, but Nick caught a nice 4lb steelhead on a crankbait. We then made a move towards back of the Warm Springs Arm. We found a couple rock piles that were stacked with fish. All were large-mouth bass, with the largest one going just over 4 pounds. By the end of the day we had caught a total of 20 bass. Monday the 28 was quite a different day. A cold storm had just arrived as we pulled up to launch the boat. There was a south wind and a heavy mist, which created a drizzle type rain that never let up all day. Right away I noticed the water temp had dropped a few degrees to 49. Ron and I fished all the areas through the narrows, where we’d been catching some nice small-mouth on Saturday, but only managed a couple tiny largemouth. It seemed many of the bass were suspended of the bottom. We worked reaction baits (spinnerbaits, ripbaits, and crankbaits), but had no luck. We went towards the back of Warm Springs to fish the rock piles that were productive on Saturday, and caught two more large-mouth on jigs, both were about a pound and a half. I dropped Ron off at the ramp at around noon and my friends, Hank and Chris, met me at the ramp. We fished around the narrows for a while but couldn’t buy a bite. For some reason this weather front really shut off the small-mouth. We then bounced around to a few new points in the Warm Springs Arm that I haven’t fished lately. All the spots were secondary points with rock. Using jigs and spinnerbaits (3/4 oz. white skirt/white blades), we caught a few more large-mouth. They weren’t as schooled up like they were before, we would hook one fish every half hour or so. By the end of the day we caught 12 large-mouth up to 3 pounds, and no small-mouth.

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February 22, 2011 Lake Anderson

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 03:48:48 +0100

Great day of fishing, 27 bass for three anglers. All were at least 12" and the largest was around 2.5 lbs. Jigs, tubes and crankbaits worked best. Water temp was 50-52 and visibility was 4ft main body and 2ft in the coves. We fished rock piles with flats and ledges in 5-15 feet of water.

February 18, 2011 Lake Sonoma

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:05:33 +0100

Despite the freezing temperatures, the bass fishing at Lake Sonoma was surprisingly really good. I was supposed to head up to Clear Lake to do some filming on Friday, but Hwy 29 was closed because of nearly a foot of snow on the summit from the previous day. Luckily my buddy Hank was able to get a “sick day” from work, so he met me at Lake Sonoma at around 10:30 am. We were in between storms, the sky was clear, there was a light south wind, and you could still see last nights full moon in the sky. Water temps were in the low 50’s and had about 3-4 ft visibility. We idled toward the Warm Spring Arm, and started fishing before we even got out of the no wake zone. It only took 10 minutes to get our first four fish in the boat, three smallmouth and one largemouth bass. All were in the 2-3 lb. range and came off the same point. A 3/8 oz. football jig (brown/red) with a Reaction Innovations Smallie Beaver (California 420) as a trailer was the hot bait. We then moved to another point across the way and caught a few more bass on the jigs, including a nice 4.5 pound largemouth. All the bass were sitting in 15-25 feet of water, and were in areas with a mix of rock, wood and a ledge. It was now around noon, and the next storm front was beginning to move in as the sky darkened. We hit a few more points in the area, but it seemed the fish began to turn off a bit. Hank had to head home, so I dropped him off at the boat ramp at around 2:30. I went back out and started fishing the area just passed the no wake zone. Finally at around 4pm I caught 2 more bass, fishing a steep rocky wall, one largie and one smallie. Both came on a Lucky Craft Staysee 90 (Table Rock Shad). I then bounced around to a bunch of similar looking areas to try to duplicate the pattern, but had no luck. Right before dark I managed one more smallmouth bass on the jig.

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