Feel like I should start out by saying "Bubbas fishing report, believe it or not:

Once again the weeks weather was holding and all week I was anticipating another "spring like" bite. In fact a buddy of mine who actually taught me a lot about Dell Valle called me Thursday and asked if he could tag along. I told him no problem and we discussed our strategy for the upcoming weekend. I told him how the majority of the bass I caught last week were feeding on craw dads (thought they would all be in the mud this time of year) and barfed up crawdads while being landed. We decided to fish crawdads on Saturday. I have an aquarium in my garage that I keep stocked with crawdads and minnows and I had about 1 dz crawdads (used for smallmouth at Tulloch) and 2 dz minnows (used at Berryessa for trout).

We arrived at the gate about 6:55 as my friend was 15 minutes late getting to my house. Once again there were quite a few cars in front of us (Dell Valle opens at 7 not 6 in the winter). We got the boat ready to launch before the gate was open and were able to slip in the lake real quick.

We discussed trolling through the narrows for stripers but decided against it as a flotilla of boats were launching and thought with the traffic it would be hard to long line big lutes through this narrow pass.

The weather was actually nice. I had a sweat shirt and turtle neck on and no jacket or hat. The wind was non existent.

We moved to the first rocky shoreline after the narrows on the right (same as last week). I put on a large craw dad and tossed it out. It took 5 minutes but it was picked up and slowly started moving off. I set the hook and nothing!!! I reeled up and checked the little lobster out and he was crushed but still active. I tossed him out again and it was hit before it reached bottom. Once again I missed it! I was starting to get frustrated but I was also happy that in the first 5 minutes I had 2 solid and aggressive bites. I told my buddy that it was going to be a good day! He wasn't so confident as he had yet to get a bite. I put another crawdad on the hook and tossed it out again. After about 5 minutes I felt some weight on the line. No tug, no pulling, just weight. I opened my bail (yes a Spinning reel) and waited. After about a minute the line started moving. It moved off a good 20 ft and stopped. I tried to feel the fish but it wasn't there. I started reeling up and realized that it was coming right back at me. I reeled up all the slack and SET THE HOOK. Fish on.....however in the excitement my drag was much too loose and line went every where. Luckily for me I was using a spinning reel and the fish was moving towards me. I was surprised at how easily the tangle was eliminated. I reeled up my slack and hit the fish again. This time it turned and ran. I was fishing in 25 ft of water but as soon as I detected a bite I put the trolling motor on Reverse #1 and worked the boat out to 60 ft for the fight. I could feel the weight and I knew it was big. My buddy kept saying it was a 2 lber. After about 5 minutes of just holding on, the fish started to rise. I still had at least 50 ft of line out and the fish was right under the boat. Actually kind of 'neat" to watch all that line start breaking the surface. I told my buddy to take a look as it was about to break water and do a dance. Just then the head popped up and my buddy said "it looks about 6 lb.). Then its shoulders came out and I said "bull S#@$, it is more like 10". That was all the bass could do was get its head and shoulder out. After a few more runs the fish was lipped, weighed and released. In the excitement we forgot to measure it. My buddies electronic scale had dead batteries so I pulled out my cheap "deliar scale" and she weighed a tad over 9 lb. Needless to say the tournament was on as my buddy was stoked. My last 2 trips to Dell valle and I had a 9 lb fish (trout last time) on each trip.

We fished that shore for another 45 minutes with no bites. We moved directly across the lake and fished the rock wall on the left side of the narrows. This spot has been holding a good mixture of catfish, bass and stripers. In fact in one of my previous reports I landed 16 fish in this spot about 2 months ago. I wound up catching 5 large mouth (1 to 3 lb), 2 stripers (19.5 and 21 inches) and 2 smallies (both about 2.5) but my buddy had none. After an hour at our second spot he asked if I would take him to a spot he liked. We motored over there (by the big rock people jump off) and fished a steep shoreline I usually pass on due to a lot of hang ups). Yes, I got hung up about 7 or 8 times in the hour we fished here. I landed 2 more bass and my buddy picked up 2 also. His biggest was 4.25. We hit another spot of mine and I caught 2 more small mouth and my buddy missed some good rips. We then moved to the dam and fished in 25 ft of water directly in front of the dam. My buddy got hot and landed 6 or 7 bass while I got 1 or 2 . We finished up about 4:15 with a tally of :
Me: 16 fish (8 largemouth, 6 small mouth and 2 striper)
Him: 11 fish (10 largemouth, 1 small mouth).
The majority of this fish were 2 to 2.5 lb. We had a couple 3's and the one 4.25 and 1 at 9.25.

We tied on some striper lures and fished for about 1 hour but we had to go. The "patrol" came by just before 5 to get everyone off the lake.

I did see some huge trout at the boat ramp. 1 boat (2 guys and 1 lady) had at least 12 trout. 6 had to be between 4 and 6 lb. They said they fished 1 spot in the narrows all day. They didn't mention what bait they used.