I was fishing Shasta out of a rental boat (no trolling motor) on a July 4th houseboat trip, Sacramento arm. It was approximately 8 AM and I was fishing a Silver Buddy in 5 - 30 ft. of water along a steep cliff with a shade line. The boat had drifted up against the shoreline and I was casting parallel. When the Silver Buddy hit 30 feet I burned it back to the boat; as I was about to take it out of the water a HUGE (for Shasta) bass hammered the bait with its back out of the water!!! It looked like it was shot out of a cannon. It peeled some drag and was landed in a few minutes. The fish was a skinny 4 - 5lber that could've been 8 lbs in the Spring. It looked like a frickin' GIANT compared to all the fish we caught that week. Afterwards I quickly motored back to the houseboat and made my wife take a picture of me w/ fish for some proof... she was less than pleased.

It was stupid because the boat was touching the bank in the clear water, there was no shade in that particular spot, the fish hit about 2 feet from the boat, and I'd already fished that area.

Mike F