March 18 2023
water temp 50 to 52 degrees
water clarity: some places down by dam up to 4 ft but mostly 0 to maybe 1 ft. stained to chocolate milk
wind light and variable.
My partner Matthew Ross and myself we boat number 46 in a field of 51 boats for the second tournament of the northern region Newjen Bass team series. Our second tournament was on beautiful Lake Berryessa. The tournament went out of Steel Canyon. We Blasted off about 7am. Our first run was into the narrows to a spot that my partner like to fish previous times he had been there with success. We pull up on the spot just outside of pleasure cove. My partner started throwing a jig and I started by throwing a crankbait. No luck on those baits i then picked up a spinnerbait still no luck. After about 30 mins with no luck and not seeing much on the electronics we decided to make a run further into the narrows just outside of Markley Cove which is where we found the cleanest water. We pulled up on a long tapering point that had a little bit of rock but also had grass patches on it. My partner Matt started throwing the A-rig and I went back to throwing the crankbait. within a couple cast my partner Matt hooks up with our biggest fish of the day which was a 3.18 lb smallmouth. The next cast Matt makes he catches another smallmouth bass. I then deciced to pick up the A-rig as well and start casting away and Bam hook up with my first fish which was a smallmouth also. I then hook up with a 3.08 lb largemouth. Then caught a couple spotted bass that helped fill our limit. Mind you we had no time to make it to lake and get any prefishing. With hearing how tough bite was we were just hoping to catch a fish. We had a limit in the boat by 9:30 am. We caught the limit off that one spot fishing anywhere from 9 to 14 feet deep. The bite started to slow down and we knew we needed to find some bigger fish to help us out so we decided to head back towards the muddy water and throw some spinnerbaits hoping to catch a big fish. We found another point very similar to the one we fished by Markley Cove and caught our other fish. My first cast with a white and chartreuse spinnerbait I caught another nice largemouth that made a cull for us. Ended up culling a couple more time at that spot before we headed back for weigh in. We ended up weighing in 13.87 which was good enough for 11th place just 2 spots out of the money but definitely gave us some good points for the season. The A-rigs had 1/8 oz heads paired with 3.8 keitech swimbaits in an electric shad color. The spinnerbaits where a KVD spinnerbait white and chartreuse with one chrome willow leaf blade and one gold willow leaf blade. We caught a total of 12 fish all day. It was a fun tournament for sure. Hope this info helps you out on your next trip to Lake Berryessa. Tight lines and good luck.
RB Bass Outdoors Angler Vern Westberg
