Anyone who has fished for bass at Clear Lake this fall and winter knows the fishing is about as tough as it can get. A number of fishermen claim the bass population is down and others say the problem is the bass are here but just not biting.
Taking all that into consideration I decided to venture out on the lake with my new underwater camera and see just what is going on. On Saturday, I accompanied a good friend and expert bass fisherman, Mike Rothstein, with the sole purpose of seeing if we could locate any fish. We didn”t plan on fishing, just looking for indications on what was going on. What we found surprised us … to say the least.
Rothstein has a modern bass boat with all the latest in electronics, including a new fish finder. I was only equipped with my underwater camera. We started checking the docks just past Library Park in Lakeport. Like most of the local fishermen I have fished the Lakeport docks for years and I thought most of the structure was the docks themselves. I also was under the impression the bottom out in front of the docks was basically flat and consisted mostly of silt.
I was completely wrong.
When we lowered the camera, we found huge rocks and other structures a good 100 feet out from the docks all along the Lakeport area. There were rocks the size of bowling balls as well as wood beams and even piles of brush. There was everything a bass would need for habitat. We also checked many of the docks for active fish and only found three bass between Library Park and Rocky Point. The water was clear enough to see completely beneath the docks with the camera. In fact, in one area we saw a beer bottle on the bottom in 12 feet of water and we could read the label on the bottle.
Near Rocky Point, we met a fisherman who said he was metering baitfish on his fish finder but couldn”t get any bass to bite. Rothstein”s fish finder also picked up the ball of baitfish, but when I lowered the camera into the ball it turned out not to be baitfish but small globs of algae. This was repeated several times throughout the day.
Rothstein”s fish finder also picked up what appeared to be bass holding near the bottom. In other words, the screen showed a familiar arc that represents fish. But when I lowered the camera it turned out to be small individual weeds growing up from the bottom.
After leaving Rocky Point, our next stop was the Aurora Club in Nice. The steel pilings there have long been a favorite hangout for bass. A pair of anglers who were fishing in a tournament were working the pilings with plastic worms and jigs. They said they had only caught one fish. I lowered the camera down to the pilings and large bass appeared everywhere. In one short stretch we saw at least seven bass. The look on the fishermen”s faces said it all.
We continued on down the line and checked a number of docks. At one dock we spotted more than 20 bass, most holding in 10-12 feet of water at the end of the docks. The camera picked up bass at a number of docks. We never saw a single fish. There was either five or more bass or nothing. At one dock a large bass approached the camera, opened its mouth and actually struck at the camera. We finished up the day south of Lucerne and ended up spending more than eight hours on the water but never fished.
The bottom of the lake revealed dozens of sunken tires, barrels and other structures. We expected to see a lot of trash on the bottom, especially near the docks, but actually we only saw a few beer cans and a discarded refrigerator. We didn”t see a single catfish, bluegill or crappie. We also didn”t see any baitfish, which explained the lack of grebes and other fish-eating birds. In all we figured we saw at least 60 bass, just about all of them in the Nice-Lucerne area.
In conclusion, the bass are there, just not in the numbers they were a few years ago. They”re also not biting for some reason. I was surprised by the lack of bass in the Lakeport area but they may have moved out into the deeper water and away from the docks. I also believe when fishermen often swear they are seeing bass or baitfish on their fish finders they are actually seeing algae globs, weeds or something else. In other words, the underwater camera doesn”t lie. Even though we didn”t make a single cast it turned out to be one my more enjoyable days on Clear Lake.
