By Terry Knight
Cooler weather has improved the bass fishing at Clear Lake. The water temperatures in the mornings have been as low as 68 degrees and the bass are feeding on silverside minnows, young bass and crawdads. The other good news is that in many areas the weeds are starting to die and sink to the bottom which exposes more of the lake to the fishermen.
Two team bass tournaments held over the weekend produced some heavy weights, The Camron Cole of Kelseyville teamed up with Lyle Gosset of Woodland to win the Northshore Lions Club tournament with a five fish limit that weighed 26.33 pounds. Their big fish weighed 6.73 pounds. They said they caught more than a dozen bass on jigs in the deeper water in the south end of the lake. The California Bass Championship held a qualifying tournament out of Redbud Park in Clear Lake and the top six teams all weighed in more than 20 pounds.
Jigs, Senkos, buzzbaits and white spinnerbaits have been the top lures. The reason being that there are literally millions of small baitfish swimming around the lake. The smaller bass are feeding the on the baitfish and the larger bass are feeding on the smaller bass. There has also been decent plastic frog on the floating weed mats. A few fishermen have been finding success slowing working the edges of the docks with plastic worms. They cast the worm under the dock and just inch it along the bottom. For those that have the patience this can be a deadly method of catching larger bass.
The cooler fall months are also the time when jumbo minnows become popular. Most of the tackle shops have received shipments of the jumbo minnows and without question they will be the number one fish catcher in the coming weeks.
American Bass (ABA) will hold a team tournament out of the Skylark Shores Motel in Lakeport on Sunday. It will be the last scheduled tournament for ABA this season. Fishermen can sign up at the Tackle It tackle shop, located next to the Skylark either Saturday evening or Sunday morning just prior to blast-off. The weigh-in will start at 3 p.m.
Catfish action remains excellent for just about all the fishermen out after them. One of the best areas is the Clear Lake State Park where most of the catfishermen are catching from 8-10 fish per evening. Crawdads, cut bait and nightcrawlers have all been effective. Catfish are also being caught in Horseshoe Bend and in Cache Creek.
Upper Blue Lake is kicking out a few bass for float tubers. The best action has been along highway 20 using a drop-shot rig. The lake is scheduled to be stocked with trout during the week of Oct. 11.
The early quail season in Lake and Mendocino counties opens on Saturday. The season runs through Jan. 30, 2011. The daily limit is 10 birds with 20 in possession. Both mountain and valley quail can be taken. In addition to a basic hunting license an upland game stamp is required.
Reports indicate that there was a very good quail hatch last spring in the Mendocino National Forest and birds are being seen everywhere.
The A zone deer season winds up on Sunday. To date it has been only so-so season. The hunting has improved slightly the past two weeks because the bucks are starting to go into rut. B zone hunters opened their season last weekend and overall the hunting ranged from poor to fair. According to reports the hunting pressure was down considerably in the Lake Pillsbury area and at Etsel Ridge and Hull Mountain. There were a few bucks taken.
This falls under useless information. A researcher at The University of California at Davis has untaken a road kill study of wild animals that are killed by vehicles on the state”s roads and highways. The count of a few of the animals so far this year is raccoon?628, striped skunk?395, ground squirrels?381, possum?366, mule or blacktail deer?273, jackrabbit?181, coyote?110 and deer mouse? 115.
