Bass fishing on Clear Lake is literally wide open and should remain excellent throughout the long three-day holiday weekend. Most of the fishermen report catching from 15 to 50 bass per day. Whereas many of them weigh only in the 1-to 3-pound class they are fun to catch, especially for the youngsters.
A good example was Wednesday when I fished with Ed Smith of Gridley. We started at 7 a.m. and quit at noon. Over that period of five hours we landed more than 40 bass that were 13 inches or longer with several in the 5-pound class. In addition we must have caught at least 20 smaller bass. We fished the area around the Lakeside County Park and used plastic worms fished slowly along the bottom. In some areas we had a bite on every cast. Most of the bass were caught in 10 to 15 feet of water and over rocks. There was no topwater action. Chris Hurt of San Rafal had similar success when caught more than 30 bass on Wednesday. He also used various plastics. The trick to success is to keep on the move until you locate active fish.
Even shore anglers have been cashing in on the action. One pair of fishermen from Marin County said they had very good success by wading the shoreline at the Lakeside County Park. Their largest bass weighed 6 pounds. The State Park is also providing excellent action for shore anglers.
Soda Bay, Henderson Point and Shag Rock are also giving up good numbers of bass. In the south end of the Lake, the Clearlake Oaks Arm is providing excellent action. Jigs and plastics have been the top lures.
There are no major bass tournaments scheduled for the long holiday weekend but there will still be a lot of fishermen out on the lake.
Crappie action has slowed a little but good numbers of the slab-sides are still being taken off the docks at Library Park in Lakeport and at the Lakeside County Park. The crappie action has slowed considerably at the State park.
Catfish action has been very good for the few anglers out after them. Some of the catfish being caught have been huge, weighing from 15 to 20 pounds.
One reason the fishing for all species has been so good is because crawdads are being seen everywhere. Gary Hill of Kelseyville says that he has been scooping up the crawdads with a dip net and one fisherman said that he put several bass in his livewell so that he could take photos and when he opened the livewell it was load with crawdads that the bass had upchucked.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) still hasn’t stocked Upper Blue Lake, the East Branch of the Russian River or Lake Pillsbury in more than a month. In past years the DFW stocked these waters weekly and you would have thought they would have stocked these areas prior to the July 4 holiday.
Saturday is a free fishing day and anyone can fish without a license. The DFW offers two Free Fishing Days each year — usually around the Fourth of July and Labor Day weekend — when it’s legal to fish without one. This year the first of the two Free Fishing Days falls on the Saturday of Independence Day weekend.
All fishing regulations, such as bag and size limits, gear restrictions, report card requirements, fishing hours and stream closures remain in effect. Every angler must have an appropriate report card if they are fishing for steelhead or sturgeon anywhere in the state, or salmon in the Smith and Klamath-Trinity river systems.
Clear Lake will be wall-to-wall with boaters this weekend and everyone should be sure and wear their live vests. On Tuesday I observed a boat launching out of Library Park in Lakeport that had 11 people on board including children. No one was wearing a life vest. We have already had four drownings on the lake within the past two months.
The answer is to always wear a life vest.
