LAKE OROVILLE 2016
What a fun past few weeks its been…. Usually this time of year I have the big baits out chasing that “one bite” but with the opener of Wild West Pro teams starting the season early I was forced to switch gears and get into tournament mode earlier than usual. And glad I did!! I spent the first few weeks of 2016 pre fishing Oroville for WWBT and was having some pretty good days for Oroville standards. I have not spent much time on this lake prior and after the last few weeks it has become one of my new favorite bodies of water. It is a great place to go and just flat out catch a ton of fish and have fun.
We were averaging 20-35 fish a day and a 10lb+ average bag every trip out. A 10lb bag usually isn’t much to get excited about but for Oroville standards it will usually cash a check.
Come game day for WWBT we stuck to our plan of attack that we established in prefish and it netted us a 14.4lb bag ( 7 fish limit for WWBT) which put us in 2nd place. What a great way to start the season!!! Back home Sunday evening prepping for the “normal life week of work” I started thinking… man if those fish are still there (which they have been for the last 3 weeks) I should see what tournaments are coming up this weekend. I found CTT was coming so without hesitation called up and signed up. I didn’t get to prefish at all for CTT but was just counting on the fish I had found still being there…. And they were! Day one of CTT brought in 10.50lbs and followed up day two with a 9.70lb bag which ended up with a 4th place finish on the pro side. Also my co angler got the day 2 big fish @ 3.43lbs.
How we caught them— im not going to go into great detail here (only because I will be fishing the FPT TOC here in a few weeks) but watch for another report to come after that 😉
The baits- we did find a reaction bite but it just wasn’t enough to count on for us. We had caught a few on rip baits, the river2sea bling, and an A-rig. What we had found that was producing more consistent fish more was smaller profile finesse tactics, shakey head, drop shot, senko, and a jig.
The setup- I really believe finesse fishing is critical to “feeling” everything. Some of these bites are very subtle ( I will discuss my setup in the video below)
[youtube httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYFmOfkypFc]
Thanks for your time and support, I look forward to sharing more with you all in the future.
And BIG thanks to all my sponsors ( Sacramento Black Rifle, River2sea, Big Bass Dreams, Eyesurrender, Dobyns Rods, Reelspeed, and Bass Dynasty) who stand behind me while I chase these little green creatures. And of course my tournament partner Dugan Wilson and the two great co anglers I drew for CTT Ben Green and Jeff Dougherty these were some solid sticks to have on my side!
See you on the water
– Danny Cross
– Ig @ “b8thrwr”
