Cool weather slowed the bass action at Clear Lake earlier this week but with temperatures forecasted to rise for the weekend, the good fishing should return.
Last week, the water temperatures were holding at 84 degrees but by Monday they had dropped to a cool 73 degrees. The result was that the topwater action came to a halt and the fishing slowed.
As the topwater action slowed to a dribble, the best action for the fishermen has been on jigs. Jigs have been one of the top lures for bass for more than 50 years and they are one of the easiest to fish. Even a novice angler can catch bass using a jig. Jigs are designed to resemble a crawdad, which is one of the favorite foods for a bass. Crawdads are in Clear Lake by the thousands and the reasons a bass prefers them are they”re easy to catch and contain a lot of protein.
Bass jigs are typically made by using a jig-head hook with weights of one-quarter, three-eighths or one-half ounces. A plastic skirt is attached to the hook. Most of the fishermen prefer a one-half-ounce but I like a three-eighths-ounce because it falls slower.
A trailer is normally attached to the jig hook. It can be a curly-tailed grub or a number of plastic type lures such as a Sweet Beaver or Paca Crawl. The jig is built to closely resemble a crawdad either swimming or slowly crawling along the bottom. The standard jig costs about $4 in the local tackle shops. The best part of fishing a jig is that it is weedless, meaning you can retrieve it through a patch of weeds and it doesn”t get hung up.
The jig is either cast under a dock or over a submerged rock pile and retrieved with long pauses. When a bass grabs the jig it will either swim away with it or slam it hard. That”s when you set the hook.
One of the masters with the jig at Clear Lake is Kevin Hall, of Middletown. He has recently won a number of bass tournaments and a good deal of money using the jig.
The return of the warm weather has caused the topwater action to improve and just about all types of topwater are catching fish in the evenings. What is surprising is the lack of any action on the plastic frog but that should change in the coming weeks as the days get hotter and the bass move under the weed mats. Typically the month of August is the best for using a plastic frog.
One problem for fishermen has been the thick algae blooms in the south end of the lake. Guide Bob Myskey said that on Wednesday he tried fishing the south end by couldn”t because of the thick algae mats. The good news is that in most of the north end that algae hasn”t yet been a problem.
Catfish action at Clear Lake is rated fair-to-good depending on where you are fishing. The docks at Indian Beach Resort in Glenhaven continue to provide decent fishing. A few catfish are also being caught in Horseshoe Bend and the docks at Lakeport. Crappie action has been practically nil with most of the anglers working hard for very few fish.
No local waters were stocked with trout this week. The trout action at Upper Blue Lake has slowed considerably. The good news is that bass fishing has been rated very good. At Indian Valley Reservoir a rumor was going around that the kokanee fishing had literally exploded. In fact, one popular fishing website reported that just about everyone was limiting out. Bob Bridges, of Lakeport, fished the lake on Sunday and didn”t get a single strike. In the end it turned out that a fisherman listed false information on the website.
The Department of Fish and Game has stocked Indian Valley Reservoir with kokanee fingerlings the past two years, but those fish aren”t large enough to catch. Kokanee mature when they are 3-5 years old and then they die. Whereas the kokanee aren”t being caught the bass fishing has been very good. One angler recently reported catching more than 20 bass in one outing.
Ocean salmon fishing took a big jump over the weekend. Fishermen were catching early limits from Shelter Cove to Bodega Bay. Bottom fishing has also been very good.
