Wednesday was brutally cold. The rain was coming down pretty hard on the drive up, but at 8am when we launched the sun popped out, for a few hours anyway. With frozen hands we made our way from Lakeport to the Clear Lake State Park. We begin by throwing ripbaits (Lucky Craft 128 pointer), and swimbaits (Osprey and Basstrix). We cover water quickly and make sure not to waist to much time in one spot. The water color and temperature would fluctuate drastically in the matter of 100 yards. The mouths of the creeks were dirty, but right around the corner you could see the bottom in 4 feet of water. With only a couple short strikes on the swimbait, we make our way south to fish rockpiles at the mouth of the Clear Lake Keys. Still, a couple missed bites, but no fish in the boat. We then pull out the jigs and flipping rods and head into the keys. In an hour or so we catch two bass, both around 3 pounds. At around 2, the temperature drops about 15 degrees, the sun goes away, and it starts hailing. The next few hours were painful, we both though our fingers were going to fall off. Low 40's rain, hail, and 15 mph wind, but we toughed it out and kept fishing. We left the keys and worked our way back up north, hitting whatever looked "fishy". I caught a bass on the ripbait, fishing a south facing flat with gravel and chunk rock. Then John caught one on Long Tule Point throwing a tube. Our final fish was caught at the Konocti Vista Casino flipping a jig. No real solid pattern on Wednesday, just junk fished to barely catch our limit. All nice 3-4 pound bass though.
Thursday we were faced bluebird skies and post frontal conditions, with the high around 55 degrees. We took our time and got on the water around 7:30 after having a big breakfast. Deciding to fish north all day, we start off at Rocky Point in Lakeport. The water was crystal clear and there was no wind, so we stayed offshore and fished a few of the deeper rock piles with dropshots and shakey heads. We marked several fish around 10-12 feet, but couldn't make them bite. We hit a few more spots around the north side of Lakeport, but had the same result. Then we made our way into Rodman Slough. The water was dirty and cold (46 degrees), as we passed under the bridge, but as soon as we reached that first cut on the right, the temperature jumped up about 5 degrees. After about two hours of flipping jigs and Senkos, we catch two bass, a 3 and 4 pounder. After leaving Rodman, we fished the island right out in front. John caught one on a Basstrix swimbait fished through the shallow tules. For the next few hours we fished all the shallow tules from Rodman to Lakeport and caught a dozen or so fish. There was a nice south breeze blowing into the bank, and the water clarity was perfect, about 2 feet. Spinnerbaits and swimbaits, (Osprey and Basstrix) caught all the fish. The largest one was 5.5, and all of them were over 3 pounds. About 22 pounds for our best 5 bass.
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