Had a chance to fish Clear Lake for a few days over last weekend and overall we had a great time on the water. We were able to get on a couple different patterns. The morning topwater and wake bait bite was pretty decent each day. By the late morning, temperatures were getting warmer and we started having to work harder for our bites. We were able to pick up a few fish in the afternoon by fishing off-shore rock piles in 16ft-20ft of water with jigs and on the drop shot. Colors that worked best for jigs were Skinny Bear’s Elite Football jigs in brown and purple with an oxblood colored trailer. All drop shot fish were caught on Margarita Mutilator colored Roboworms. Bites on the drop shot were subtle, so I relied on Berkley NanoFil line to help detect bites. We were also able to punch a few fish out of the grass as well with Sprayed Grass colored Sweet Beavers. In the early evening the topwater bite was great, we caught fish at this time using black buzz baits, watermelon seed colored Horny Toads, as well as wake baits. I will say that the fish were not fully committing to the topwater baits until the sun had set, once the sun set they seemed to be committing more. There was a really good late evening bite each night and we were able to catch fish on black jigs along rock walls. During this time, we caught fish from right on the bank to about 20ft of water.
Overall, we covered a lot of water and caught fish at just about every spot we fished, almost all fish caught were in the 4-5lb range. If you are planning on fishing Clear Lake right now, the best advice I could give at this time is to go out and fish your strengths, and fish slow! The slower we fished, the more bites we got. Good luck!
Derrick Hicks
Humboldt State Bass Team
Dobyns Rods Director of College Staff