Sign-ups for the popular annual Holder Ford-Mercury Team Bass Tournament open 9 a.m. on Saturday. Fishermen can enter the tournament at the Holder Ford dealership, 2575 S. Main St. in Lakeport.
The tournament is scheduled for March 13-14 and the first team to sign up on Saturday receives the No. 1 blast-off number for the first day of the tournament. According to Holder Ford spokesman Richard Hoover, tournament officials expect fishermen to start lining up outside the dealership as early as midnight tonight. Blast-off numbers are issued in the order that teams sign up, with the walk-ins receiving the first numbers on Saturday. Entries mailed in will then be issued numbers in the order they are received.
The entry fee for the tournament is $150 per team and the big-fish option is an additional $50. That means the maximum a team will pay is $200. The payout is slightly changed this year. The tournament still offers a 100-percent payback of entry fees but there will be only one option and that will be the big-fish option, which pays down to three big fish awards each day.
Rain, rain and more rain. That”s what most of the fishermen at Clear Lake are hoping for. The recent rains have raised the lake level more than a foot and the forecast is for even more wet stuff. Does that mean the drought is over? Hardly, but it is good news. As of Thursday morning the lake level stood at 2.55 feet on the Rumsey Gauge. Actually that”s more than a foot above last year at this time. In fact, the lake peaked at 4.17 feet a year ago and that occurred on March 30. The lake level should rise to at least 3 feet by the weekend.
There had been fears last fall that the drought would drop the lake level to zero on the Rumsey Gauge, but that won”t happen now. In fact, there is even a remote chance the lake could reach the full mark of 7.56 feet before the winter is over. It all depends on how many more storms like this one we receive. The ground is now saturated and the creeks draining into the lake will receive the full runoff from the surrounding hills. Scotts Creek, Kelsey Creek and Middle Creek are good examples. Water in all three is running bank-to-bank. Clear Lake can fill very fast during a storm. For example, in December of 2007 the lake level was .97 feet on the Rumsey Gauge. Yet by March of 2008 the lake level had risen to 7.11 feet. It should be noted that Yolo County is entitled to a certain amount of water from Clear Lake when the lake level reaches 3.22 feet or greater on the Rumsey Gauge by May 1.
The rising lake level will have a positive impact on the fishing. As the tules flood, the bass will move into the shallow water to feed on the crawdads. Rising water also scatters the fish and opens up vast new areas to fish. For example, the docks in the Lakeport area have had very little water beneath them but that has changed. Now there is 2-3 feet at the outer edges of the docks. Typically the docks between Library Park and Rocky Point provide excellent fishing and that should start as soon as the water clears.
As for now, much of the lake is very muddy and the fishing will be slow for at least a week. American Bass will hold a team tournament on Sunday. The tournament operates out of the Konocti Vista Casino, Resort and Marina and the weigh-in starts at 3 p.m.
Trout action is still rated very good at Upper Blue Lake. Both trollers and bank fishermen have been scoring on good-sized fish The lake is scheduled to receive another stocking of trout next week.
Duck hunters head into their final week of the season. It closes on Jan. 31 and the final week should see an improvement in the hunting. To date the success rate has been ranging from poor to fair and no one seems to know why. Local hunters say that with the exception of this past week, the duck hunting on Clear Lake has been the poorest in many years. The forecast prior to the season opener was that the hunting would be excellent this year but that hasn”t been the case.
