Just about anyone who has fished at Clear Lake this year has complained about the poor bass fishing. Most fishermen are happy to catch two or three fish for a day”s effort. Of course, the tournament fishermen are doing better than most of the recreational anglers because of their experience.
So just how does a fisherman catch a fish when the fishing is this tough? That”s a question I posed to veteran tournament angler Mark Crutcher of Lakeport.
Crutcher, 37, is a California Highway Patrolman, but his passion is bass fishing, especially competing in tournaments. He has few equals when it comes to knowing how to fish Clear Lake and has won dozens of bass tournaments. He also has been named “Angler of the Year” in several circuits.
Crutcher agreed to spend a few hours with me on the lake Tuesday morning to show me just how he goes about fishing during a tournament. We blasted off at Library Park in Lakeport aboard Crutcher”s 21-foot Ranger bass boat powered by a 225 hp Mercury outboard. The boat can reach speeds of more than 60 mph.
Our first stop was some weed mats near Long Tule Point and Crutcher tied on a white and chartreuse buzzbait. Crutcher says he prefers a buzzbait early in the morning because it”s a known big-fish lure and he can cover a lot of water in a short time. According to Crutcher, the strategy when competing in a tournament is to be constantly on the move and to be looking for active fish. He would cast the buzzbait beyond the weed mat and retrieve right through the weeds. Unfortunately he didn”t get a single blowup from a bass while fishing the entire area.
Up next were the weed mats near the State Park. Again, Crutcher cast the buzzbait to the weed mats. After a few casts he did get a blowup from a large bass but it missed the lure completely. He continued to cast to the weed mats and switched from the buzzbait to a white plastic frog. Crutcher said the advantage of using a plastic frog is that it is weedless and you can cast it right into the thickest of weeds and it never gets tangled. He retrieves the frog with short jerks with pauses. Most of the time a bass will grab the frog during one of these pauses.
When Crutcher isn”t using a buzzbait or a plastic frog his favorite lure on Clear Lake is a Senko rigged wacky style. The Senko came on the scene about 10 years ago and it quickly became one of the top bass lures. It resembles a large plastic worm and comes in a variety of colors. Rigging a Senko wacky style means running a wide-gap worm hook through the center of the Senko. The hook is exposed but it rarely gets weeds. Crutcher casts the Senko into the center of the weed mats, beneath a dock or above a rockpile and allows it to sink to the bottom. He gently lifts the tip of his fishing rod and then allows the Senko to settle back to the bottom. He said this is a deadly method of fishing and a number of recent tournament winners at Clear Lake were using Senkos.
Crutcher said Clear Lake is undergoing a transition and the bass fishing has slowed down considerably. He said that most tournament fishermen are going for five or six bites per day and if they”re lucky they will catch that number of fish.
“This year a good day at Clear Lake is when you can catch five bass,” Crutcher said.
The good news, according to Crutcher, is that there are millions of small baitfish in the lake and he thinks once the weeds die off the fishing should improve considerably as the larger bass start to feed on these baitfish. He also said the future looks bright because of all the juvenile bass between 3-5 inches long. By next summer many of these small bass will be 11-13 inches long.
There is no question that using Crutcher”s techniques will result in more bass being caught and that applies to both the tournament angler and the recreational fisherman.
