By Terry Knight
The poor bass fishing at Clear Lake has most of the tournament fishermen completely stumped. A good example were the results of the Triton Boat Owners Tournament held over the weekend. The two-day event drew 119 boats but only a few of the fishermen caught any bass. In fact, on Saturday out of the 119 teams, 43 failed to catch a single fish. It was even worse on Sunday. That”s unheard of at Clear Lake.
To say the statistics of the tournament were lousy is an understatement. Only 13 teams weighed in a five-fish limit on both days and the overall average number of fish per team caught during the entire tournament was only 3.3. The good news is that the overall average weight per fish was 3.82 pounds. The winners of the tournament were Daryl Snodgrass and Mike Stahlaman of Yelma, Washington with 46.72 pounds. The best local team finish was R.C. Stephens and Bill O”Shinn of Clearlake Oaks who finished in fourth place with 41.56 pounds of bass.
The highlight of the tournament was when a new $50,000 Triton bass boat was given away in a drawing where all of the 119 Triton boaters names were placed in a hat. Six names were drawn and the field was then reduced to two. Both fishermen were offered $19,000 if they wanted to forgo the final drawing for the boat. Curtis Spindler of Montana and Gasper Busalachhi of San Mateo were the final two names to be drawn for the boat. They were each offered $19,000 in cash if they gave up their opportunity to be drawn for the boat. They both took the cash so no one took home the boat.
The lake will play host to another large bass tournament this weekend when Angler”s Choice holds their Tournament of Champions out of the Konocti Vista Casino, Resort and Marina. The tournament is expected to draw approximately 150 boats with the weigh-ins starting at 3 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.
The bass fishing on the lake remains very slow. Many of the fishermen prefishing for the upcoming Anglers Choice tournament report catching only two or three fish for an entire day out on the lake. Lipless Crankbaits and chatterbaits are still the number one lure. A few bass are being caught early in the mornings on topwater lures such as the Zara Spook. Most of the local fishing guides have switched to live jumbo minnows and their clients are catching on the average of eight bass per outing. The main problem appears to be the huge amount of bait fish in the lake. Silverside minnows, juvenile bass and even threadfin shad are everywhere and the bass are gorging themselves on the them. There is so much food for the bass that they have no reason to strike at a lure. Fishermen also report catching dozens of small bass in the 6-10 inch range which means that next summer the fishing should be nothing short of awesome.
The good news is that the catfish action remains excellent. In fact, many of the bass fishermen have been complaining that they are catching too many catfish instead of the bass. On Wednesday one fisherman told me that he had caught only two bass but had caught 10 catfish using a spinnerbait. There are also a few crappie being caught near Shag Rock and Kono Tayee. A few bluegill are also being caught off the docks at the County Park.
The Tackle It tackle shop in Lakeport now offers online fishing tackle for sale. Maverick plastic worms, spinnerbaits and jigs can be ordered online by going to www.tackleit.biz.
Last week I erroneously reported that Upper Blue Lake was scheduled to be stocked with trout. According to the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) web site the lake will be stocked the week of Oct. 17. This will be the first stocking in at least two months.
Zone B deer hunters go into their final week, most of the B zones close on Oct. 24, and hunters are hoping for some weather to put the deer on the move. To date the unseasonably hot weather has slowed the hunting to a crawl. One local group of hunters were hunting near Snow Mountain last week and walked into a giant marijuana raid being conducted by law enforcement authorities. They said there were helicopters hovering over them and they met a number of armed CAMP members who told them it would be in their best interest to leave the area, which they did.
