Lake Berryessa 05-21-2020

I hit the lake again hoping to learn a little more about what stage the fish were in as well as just relax and get a line wet. I started the day launching out of Capell Cove around 6 am, the air temp was at 45 degrees and there was fog rolling off the water. I ran up north to start and made an effort to get on a jig bite. If you know me, you know I love to throw a jig especially on lake Berryessa. I am a firm believer that there is always a jig bite on the lakes out here in northern California you just have to find it, and usually the best bites come in those low light conditions at least on the natural colored jigs. Anyways my first spot proved to have some jig fish, nothing big but 4 casts equaled 4 jig bites so pretty consistent biggest fish was almost 3 pounds. After about an hour working for a jig bite I decided to switch to the jerk bait and start looking for a different bite. I moved to a pocket where my buddy joey and I were catching them last time, seeing a lot of fry in the water as well as some balls of shad being pushed around I was sure I would get a few... After 15 mins I still hadn't got a bite. I saw bait up near the surface and marked bass within the first 10 ft of the surface, then the light bulb went off. so I switched from the traditional lucky craft pointer Jerkbait and tied on a fluke. It was lights out from there.

I caught about 10 fish within 20 mins in that pocket before making a move to replicate the bite elsewhere. I found a couple of other areas up north that had a consistent fluke bite. They were eating it almost like top water, but when I switched to a spook or something with a better hook up ratio they wanted nothing to do with it. I stuck with the fluke the rest of the day going through two whole packs and shredding my thumb from their sharp teeth. Unfortunately I couldn't get anything big on it. Once again My 5 fish limit was a little over 10 pounds and I forgot to weigh one fish that would of helped so maybe around 11 pounds but my biggest fish was 3 pounds and some change. I was able to get one fish on an s waver 120 as well but I didn't stick with it due to the fact that it always breaks my heart seeing the big ones follow it and not eat it.

I got off the water at 3 pm with the water temp at 73 degrees from its start of 70 degrees. Guys out there are catching a lot of fish right now but are running into the same problem as me, Size! we can't seem to find the big ones. I'm just going to keep putting in the work and try to figure out where they went. I think it might be time to look more towards offshore. The weather for the day was beautiful. Wind was dead calm to start and around 10 am it began to blow 5-10 mph out of the SSW. It was Sunny with mixed clouds, high of 80 degree's. The water is a little clearer than normal this year I would say with 10-15 feet visibility in some places. For any one going out to the lake over the weekend I would say go shallow (5-15 ft) with bait fish imitating lures for 1-3 pound fish and go deeper 20+ feet for the bigger bites. Just remember nothing is an absolute with bass fishing, what I'm experiencing out there could be nothing like what the next guy is experiencing. Hell there could be guys out there on 20 and 25 pound limits up shallow. those guys are not me lol. I will figure it out though and I let y'all know how I did it. Until next time stay safe, and keep on Living Fast and Catching Bass.