Early winter bass fishing on the west coast

Early winter fishing can be frustrating for most and I would be the one probably leading the pack. That’s why it’s good to bring a friend to help figure out what could be a bad day of fishing might turn out to be a great day, worst case scenario you get some great laughs. 

0n this day my friend Erik Martinez, a huge Jackson kayak fan and kraken elite owner and myself decided to hit Lake Berryessa in northern California. The species we were trying to locate were small mouth, large mouth, spotted bass but really anything that would bite sounded good to me. When we arrived the air temp was a brisk 32 degrees and slowly climbing. We jumped back in the truck very quickly after being out for 5 minutes getting our gear ready. I used this time to take the drone for a flight. 

We launched and paddled/pedal the kayak to the first point south from the launch. We were looking for schooling schools of fish and bait. I came up to some bass feeding in between the 12 and 20 feet right off the bat and dropped a drop shot on the fish and got a beautiful small mouth bass. As I was fighting the fish I told Erik to cast under me as a frenzy was going on. Just as soon as he casted he was on the fish fighting a really nice smallie. We made a few other casts and just like that they were gone and our fish finders were empty. It’s always fascinating and frustrating to me how quickly you can be on the bass and then ice cold the next.

We decided to cover some water to find some other fishable cover that might have been holding bass. As we come of the location we were fishing we find that every normal point and cove has a boat or two fishing it. There was a lot of boats heading to the lake in the morning I mention I think a tourney is taking place. We find out later in the evening that the winning bag was only 14 pounds so my two small mouth I landed were great to see compared to some who skunked.

Erik was able to land a total of 5 bass the second was while trolling on the way over to a way point that was southwest from our first fish about ½ mile. His next spotted bass came on a drop shot while fishing some tree’s in 10 feet of water. We covered some more water with zero signs on the fish finder till we got into 30 to 15 feet of water where fish were schooled up. I threw a shakey head jig that kept getting hit but couldn’t set the hook. Erik got one spot on a flutter spoon.

We headed back in towards the launch and while I was fishing sub slightly submerged timber I got a fish on a bleeding shad spinner bait, I continued to fish for another hour fishing jigs in timber in 10 feet and was not able to locate any more fish, While Erik was able to land another fish on a spinner bait. 

The day overall was great, I got to be on the water with a great friend while catching some fish and learn what the fish were doing so I could be better prepared next time.