Northern California late winter Bassn’

2017 started off slow like most January’s but this year it was painfull, with only being able  to get several trips under my belt for striped bass and bass, in between the huge amounts of rain northern California has got to start the year off. I was completely skunked. 

With even more rain in the forecast for the first week of February and of course life getting in the way, the first time I could find the water was a trip planned for Lake camanche second weekend of feb. With one fish landed on an umbrella rig and a broken rod, shortly thereafter I called it quits once the wind picked up. 

The weather gave a little window of opportunity to get out and fish to try to fill some numbers for an online bass fishing tournament here on the west coast. Even as slow as the fishing had been I told myself I will fish every tournament online or in person I can. The month long tournament started at the end of January and went till the end of February. 8 fish limit out of 60 guys I had some ground I need to cover. 

Had planned on a trip to a local lake that held both bass and striped bass. I figured if I couldn’t find a pattern to the bass I would target striped bass. Well that plan fell through as a close friend was at work on another lake a few hrs away and wanted to fish it after for the tourney. But he had broke is official measuring board (hawg trough). I tried to meet his co workers that were meeting him up there with a spare board but to no evail. That’s when Adam asked me to drive up to him he would buy lunch and pay my way for the day how could I say no to free fishing and to helping a friend out. 

Didn’t get to launch till close to 11 sense it was such a last minute thing and the further drive. The plan was to launch, paddle, mark then fish the way points on the way back. I had never fished this body of water before, and any Google map studying I did was pointless because they were drought maps and with this huge amount of water we have thankfully gotten in northern California changed things drastically. As I’m marking way points I notice lots of darker rock on a point that extended into the water, where they made a ramp for drought conditions. I fish the front of the point with a jig with no action besides a bird landing on my fishing rod. Change up to the trusty Ned rig on the back side and Bam! land first fish of the day at a little more then 17 inches followed by a 12 inch red eye. Met up with Adam and talked about any fish caught and what was working. Continued to work the bank and 15 feet of water for 3 more fish in the range of 12 and 15 inches. 

I had lost sight of Adam as he pushed across to fish some structure on the other side of the lake. I radioed to him just as I got done working some submerged timber. And told him I wanted to fish a point in the middle of the lake that I had noticed earlier. I Fished this point with three nice fish landed. Then before I knew it I was pushed into Adam at the tip of this point by the wind. We were clearly on the same page as he had no idea where I was talking about fishing. He lands a couple fish two my one. As he is making his way to the bank I came from earlier I landed a slab coming in at 1.5 pounds. Just about that time the hillside swallowed the sun and I started heading in. We fished the one point I spoke about earlier and I landed on more little fish. With that I was done and it was a straight paddle to the ramp.

After submitting my fish I went from tied to last out 60 to ninth place and almost in the money. With a few days left and my limit of 8 fish for the tourney I will be working hard to cull some fish and get in the money