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Top Calfishing.com Freshwater Fishing in California topic #91
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Subject: "Clear Lake October 23,24 1999" Previous topic | Next topic
RobMon Oct-25-99 07:10 PM
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#91, "Clear Lake October 23,24 1999"


          

Well I'm back. It's been a drought lately for me in the freshwater fishing deparment but this weekend was the big float tube tournament at Clear Lake combining the forces of the Bass n Tubes club with the Sonoma County Bellyboat Bass Club (links in the links section to both). <BR>I traveled with Brian Long who came up from Santa Barbara early on Friday. The drive was about 6 and a half hours from San Luis Obispo to the northern end of the lake and we pulled in around 4pm. Since we were there to fish we started right away at this little pond above the "You Wanna Camp" we were staying at. Lots of small fish hitting the buzzbaits and tourney frogs up there. Back to the campground for steaks and BS'ing and then to bed at around 10. <BR>5:10am and we were up. The morning was chilly and the full moon was just setting in the Western sky. Check in was at 6:15 and the trucks came rolling in to the dirt lot by the bridge over Rodman slough. I can't remember when we launched but I do know that it was still pitch dark. About a third of the guys drove off to other parts of the lake with the rest spreading out into Rodman. I kicked up the slough figuring it would be better to paddle than try to fish when you could barely see the bank across the slough. I started fishing where the sloughs branch off throwing a buzzbait. No bites for the first 45 minutes although I saw John Lake stick one nearby. At 7 I rigged up an electric blue iovino reaper and started flipping the trees. Second flip I had the bait sitting on a tree branch about 6 inches underwater. Thunk, and the line darted left. I set the hook and had a three pounder in the bag. Working around the corner to the right I flipped two more fish on the reaper, both a little over 13 inches. They were in about 4 feet of water on tree branches and hit agressively. This was to be my last bites for the next oh about 7 hours but I'll recap the rest of the day anyway. I flipped my up the slough on the right and then out the other side and up the middle slough. Water was a cool 64 degrees and only about 8 feet at the deepest. There were big sandbars at the entrance to all the sloughs and while there was a boat in the slough on the right, I would say the other ones were unsafe in any boat. The middle slough had some good looking stuff but I couldn't get anything going on the reaper or a brown jig. At 2 I started heading back to the bridge throwing a blue/white/chrome 1/4 oz speedtrap. By then all the good trees had been fished hard so I was hoping to show them something different. It paid off with one more keeper on the outside of a big tree. As I got closer to the bridge I noticed 3 or 4 guys hanging around the pylons. I heard them saying something about a bluegill someone had caught and when Jeff Smith hooked up I thought that was what he had and couldn't figure out why it was taking him so long to get it in. Turned out to be a 5 bass! They were getting them vertical jigging the pylons with hopkins spoons. I couldn't believe it but by the end of the second day there were 4 fish over 5 pounds taken using this technique on this area. Unreal. Since there were so many guys doing it I fished past them out towards the main lake in the last few minutes of the day. With 10 mintues before weigh in I tied on a white 1/2 oz vyper jig with a yamamoto twil tail in the daquiri ice color. A few flips down the tules and wham! I get nailed hard by a nice fish. I set and came up with a tree branch. Damn! 20 feet down the bank I flipped it in over some tullies so the line was hanging vertical and it shoots out to side. Swing and a miss! Ughh, well I was close to a limit but it just didn't happen. At weigh in there were some very nice fish brought in. Most notable was Andy Parson's 9.46 taken on a spittn image. What a toad! Dan Bass and Jeff Smith also brought in two very nice fish over 4 pounds each. I was in 5th after day one with about 7 and a half pounds. It was anybody's tournament though because even with the 9 pounder the big limit (Andy's) was only 12 and some change. We'll see that he didn't let his lead get away but more on that in a sec. <BR>Day 2:<BR>Back up at 5:30am this time and frost on everything including Brian and my wader's which were crispy in the morning. Same thing this morining, we knew the drill and were in the water by 6:40. Most guys drove off to persue other areas of the lake leaving Rodman to Brian, John, Eric, Darce, me and two gentlemen from the Sonoma club. Brian and I pounded the bank where I missed the bites on the white jig yesterday with white jigs but couldn't make it happen. We saw Darce stick a solid 5 off the pylons on a hopkins and then lose another nice fish moments later. I couldn't take it so Brian and I headed for the slough on the right. John was back there and we all flipped it hard for 4 hours and not a bite!! I threw the white jig the entire time and John was throwing reapers and a spinner bait. Today weigh in was at 2 and so at 11 I started the long kick back to the bridge. It took me an hour, stopping to fish a few trees on the way back. I hit the bank by the pylons again for nothing on reapers and then worked out towards the main lake on the left side to fish a tullie island out there. Glassy calm today with bright blue skies and a full moon. Finally at 1 I got serious on this tullie bank that had a little deeper water on it. I was flipping a smoke shad 4" reaper every 4 or 5 feet when I see this little cut. Three flips to the same spot and my line slides off real slow the side. I thought it was the reaper going down hill but when it went the other way I knew something was up but only got a weak hookset. The fish shot off the bank and was 15 feet behind me before I could turn around. Pop and it fell off the hook! Man oh man I hate that feeling. I worked the bank down about 100 feet just amped. I was making good flips and saw a nice clump of tullies. I threw it right on the tullies and pulled it in the water. Twitch twitch, pause, twitch twich, thunk, I ko'd this one and it came up stuck in the tullies. I kicked in and lipped it, my only keeper of the day but it was fun and I felt like I'd earned it. Back at weigh in the big fish parade began again. Darce Caldwell did a great job sticking to his game plan of jigging the pylons and fishing nearby areas in the deepest water he could find. He brough in 14 pounds for 4 fish (and one was a dink too) to take 3rd place! Andy Parson had his limit including a 5 and took first with 24.07 pounds barely edging Dan Bass by .06lbs. Dan took big fish with a beauty 6.4 he cranked up on a speed trap. Jeff Smith made the run over to Rocky point I believe and brought back enough crank fish to take 5th. Eric Caldwell took 4th with his second 4 fish day. Eric conjured up these fish with only a few hours left out of some trees in Rodman that had been hammered. Maybe it was that black jig he was flipping instead of reapers! I'm sorry if I missed anyone's big fish or nice limit, there were lots of fish weighed in and I'm going on memory here. <BR>So now after reading all that you may need a break =) but since I've never been to Clear Lake before and my goal was really to learn something about the lake, let me share what I can about the trip. If you've never seen Clear Lake it's a big natural lake and very shallow throughout. Rodman slough is a narrow arm that goes back quite a distance in the middle slough. The lake is down 8 or 10 feet right now and the short days and cooling weather have brought water temps down to 64, typical fall stuff really, and when you think about how the good fish were caught it all makes sense. The key, in my opinion, was two things: Bait fish and deeper water. There are lots of trees in Rodman but the ones that produced had at least 5 feet of water underneath them. There is also a tonnage (I mean billions here) of small baitfish in the area. In the morning they were up chasing the hatching mayflies around on the surface but in the afternoon they dropped out a little deeper. The bass naturally are feeding on these baitfish which would explain why four 5 fish were taken on jigging spoons, why Andy caught a 9.46 on a spittn image, why Dan Bass and Jeff Smith both cranked up nice fish the second day, why Eric Caldwell had a 7 or 8 pounder break his spinnerbait in half the first day, and why I got bit on the white jig. It also explains why John Lake had a tough two days flipping reapers although he did get 7 fish by pure persistance and skill at fishing this bait ( hey I got 4 of my 5 fish this way too but they weren't 5 pounders). <BR>So that's my take on the deal and all I can say is...<P>I'll be back!

  

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Clear Lake October 23,24 1999 [View all] , Rob, Mon Oct-25-99 07:10 PM
  RE: Clear Lake October 23,24 1999, Lake, Oct 10th 2011, #1
RE: Clear Lake October 23,24 1999, Bassin, Oct 10th 2011, #2
RE: Clear Lake October 23,24 1999, swimbait, Oct 13th 2011, #3

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