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Fishing Report
fishing1

I’m sure I’m not the only one who wasn’t out shopping early for Christmas yet. I chose to blame it on Christmas being on a Monday combined with my Christmas company arriving on Saturday. Either way, I found a way to get my shopping done. Personally, I love receiving gift cards to my favorite places to shop. Lately, I’ve been really interested in the Yeti Load Out Bucket. It’s fairly priced and seems to have a lot of uses for someone that camps and fishes a lot. Speaking of Yeti, one of my Christmas gift hacks for the person that has everything, continues to be a Yeti 20 oz. Tumbler. It’s an amazing cup that has replaced every coffee cup in my cabinet. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I drank coffee out of anything but my Yeti cup. I’ve purchased Yeti cups as gifts for five friends now, and they’ve all gone out of their way to thank me later. If you can’t find the Yeti cups the RTIC cups are also very good, and I’ve even heard good things about the Ozark Trail cups that can be purchased at Wal Mart.

 

Delta Report:

The stripers are really scattered throughout the system right now as anglers have to cover a lot of water to fill their limits. Most anglers are either trolling for them or tossing swim baits like Basstrix hollow body swim baits or fish traps. For bass, anglers are having to slow way down as the water temperature has dropped making the bass even more lethargic than before. Anglers catching bass are fishing with black/red or black/blue jigs down to 15 feet deep.

 

New Melones Lake:

Trout are feeding heavily on schools of small shad. Most of the fish are being caught in the top 10 feet of the water column. Bank anglers have been bringing limits of planters, as well as some 2- to 3-pound holdovers. Glory Hole Point, Angels Cove, and Glory Hole Cove have been the most productive areas. Berkley Power bait has really been working. Try using rainbow glitter, green, or orange. The key to catching fish with Power bait is using enough dough to make the bait float off of the bottom. Also using a small size 14 or 16 treble hook will help accomplish this presentation. When you are fishing with multiple rods try experimenting with the length of your leader. The fish will feed anywhere from 2 to 6 feet off of the bottom. For anglers who want to fish lures from shore, a Kastmaster is hard to beat.

 

Lake Amador:

Trout fishing continues to be great with a lot of limits being caught. The Tackle Box Café reported releasing 7- to 10-pound trout in the lake. Currently the lake is being planted with 1500 pounds of trout per week. The lake is open every day for fishermen with the Café open on New Year’s Day.

 

Lake Camanche:

Anglers are doing well while fishing for trout on both sides of the lake. Many of them are having success while fishing the top ten feet of the water column. Bass fishing is fair. Anglers are catching fish while fishing as deep as 30 feet deep while dragging jigs or small worms.

 

Lake Don Pedro:

Trout fishing is slow right now on the lake. Most anglers trolling for trout are having limited results while trolling from 25 to 40 feet deep. Bass fishing is good for anglers that are finding schools of fish as deep as 50 feet deep. Once finding them anglers are using drop shotted worms, jigs, and shaky head worms.

 

Tip of the Week:

A friend of mine told me a story one time about falling out of his boat during the wintertime. It was one of the scariest experiences for him since it was an exceptionally cold day. Fortunately for him, he had an extra pair of clothing on his boat that day. That extra pair of clothing not only saved him from hypothermia but could have possibly saved his life. From his experience, I’ve learned to always have an extra set of clothing stored in a waterproof bag/compartment somewhere on my boat.