Bass are taking a back seat to catfish this week at Clear Lake. Whereas the bass fishing is still very slow it”s been just the opposite for the catfishermen. In fact, a good number of bass fishermen have been switching to catfishing.
Gary Hill of Kelseyville has been loading up on catfish while fishing in the vicinity of the State Park. Hill has been fishing out of his float tube and using live crawdads for bait. He says he has been averaging from six to 10 catfish per evening, some weighing up to 10 pounds.
Hill sets out his own crawdad traps so that he has a ready supply of fresh bait. He said he often catches up to 50 crawdads in one night in his traps. He sets the traps back in the sloughs.
Hill also rigs the crawdads in a unique way. Instead of allowing the crawdad to crawl along the bottom and get tangled in the weeds, he rigs the live crawdad under a bobber with the depth set so that the crawdad swims just above the submerged weeds. He uses a small hook and runs the hook upward through the shell on the front of the crawdad”s head. At times he will use a double hook set up where one hook goes through head and the other through the tail. Hill says the catfish have been most active from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. As a bonus he often catches a bass or two.
Catfish are also being caught by bank fishermen at Library Park in Lakeport, the docks at the Lucerne ramp, Lakeside County Park and at Redbud Park. Most of the successful fishermen have been using either dead shad, cut mackerel or nightcrawlers, but by far the best bait is a live crawdad. Live crawdads can be purchased at Clearlake Outdoors, located on Soda Bay Road in Lakeport.
Bass fishermen are still struggling at Clear Lake. The results of the Angler”s Choice team tournament held out of Konocti Vista Casino, Resort and Marina on Sunday revealed only six limits out of 23 boats. Most of the fishermen were happy with two or three fish. The topwater action is still very slow and most of the successful fishermen are drop-shotting a plastic worm.
The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) hasn”t scheduled any trout plants at either Upper Blue Lake or the East Branch of the Russian River for the next two weeks. Upper Blue Lake hasn”t been stocked in more than a month.
As expected the opening weekend of the Zone A deer season turned out to be a bust for most of the local hunters. Few bucks were taken and even fewer were seen. The results reported by the University of California Hopland Field Research Station are a perfect example.
The 5,000-acre ranch is open to the public to hunt on the first two weekends of the season. Twenty hunters are allowed on each day. Of the 40 hunters at the station, only two small bucks were taken. Normally at least 10 bucks are taken for the opening weekend. According to authorities at the station, it was the lowest buck take for an opening weekend in the 50-year history of the station.
Hunting wasn”t much better in the Mendocino National Forest. According to Department of Fish and Game Warden Lt. Loren Freeman, his game wardens didn”t validate a single deer tag in the national forest on the opening weekend. I did hear of two bucks being taken off the Cache Creek Wildlife Area. Local butcher Larry Poff of Kelseyville said five bucks were brought into his shop for processing on the opening weekend.
Poff said all of the deer came off private ranches. Poff processes deer and pigs and can be reached at (707) 349-6800.
I received an interesting telephone call from a reader earlier this week. She wanted to know why she would have dozens of blackbirds at her backyard bird feeder during the winter and spring months but none during the summer months. The same thing has happened at my bird feeder.
I did some research and learned that blackbirds feed on seeds during the fall, winter and spring seasons but switch exclusively to insects during the summer. The blackbirds prefer the insects because of the high protein value readily available during the summer months. It just goes to show that we learn something new about nature every day.
