Nicasio
Falling water means it’s easier to get around. But the question is which spots are worth getting to if falling water levels push the fish off the shallow cover.
I fished three of the last six days from the island; one day a 1 hour hike into the backside from the dam and one day from the island and from the back side near the school house. Every trip the water was lower and in total about 4-5 feet lower by the end of the third trip. Some spots still had good wood cover and grass, and I found a lot of 2-3 lb fish on these spots using a Jig Monster prototype white/chartreuse ½ oz spinnerbait, a ½ oz chatterbait in green pumpkin with 2/3 of a green pumpkin senko for a trailer, a ¼ ounce speed trap in red craw, a wacky rigged Baby Bass 5” senko and my two best fish (4/48 & 6.11) both hit a ½ oz Jig Monster Mayhem series flipping jig in Bludgeon & Lava Craw.
I took a quick hour out there today and found that some of the spots that are high and dry had break lines or rock piles within 20 feet of shore and I think a lot of the fish holding on lay downs have pulled out to these nearby breaks and ledges because in three similar spots I had multiple bites on the speedtrap in red craw and the Jig Monster Chaos football jig in ¾ oz Bludgeon and Brazen Bluegill. My best fish was about 4 pounds (left my scale in the car) or so but this was all in one hour so I can’t wait to get back out and revisit all my good wood that’s high and dry to see if there are breaks and rocks close by. It’s like pre-spawn but backwards.
Clearlake
Off shore weed beds on the north end are kicking out fish in the 3-5 pound range with bonus fish in the 5-8 pound range being not uncommon. Best baits are big soft plastics like 10” worms, magnum lizards, and super flukes on a Carolina rig, or 5-7” senkos rigged on weighted wacky jigheads. Top water fishing is hit or miss, but walking baits, poppers, and floater swimbaits like the JSJ Snack Size Trout, MS Slammer, and BBZ-1 have taken fish up to 9 pounds in the last 4 or 5 days.
As for the south end, 1 oz Jig Monster football head jigs in Bludgeon, Green Pumpkin Chartreuse, Brazen Bluegill and Sexy Shad are taking fish in the 4-8 pound range off some of the deeper docks and rock piles, with brass and glass rigged beavers, sharks, and paddletails or 5-6” senkos on a weighted wacky head producing good fish as well. I’m starting to hear reports of a deep diving crankbait bite but the fish are still in transition and that bite has not peaked yet.
As for night fishing I’m told that 1 oz spinnerbaits and 10” worms on brass and glass are producing well for guys fishing rocky areas around shag rock.

First, I know we’ve been neglecting our blog, but it’s for the greater good. We finally got our Mayhem Flipping Jigs up and available on Jigmonster.com in 20 colors as well as expanding the color options on the Chaos Football Jigs. They turned out even better than I thought they would - you definitely should check them out:
I could have caught more but I promised Emily that we would be back to the car by dark.
It wasn’t that long ago when I would have to toss (if the fish didn’t toss it for me) $20-$30 worth of Senkos and Beavers on almost every trip to the lakes or Delta. In fact, for a very long time the only solutions for the short life span of soft plastics was either melting baits back together with an open flame – a task that even veteran bass guys found dangerous, flawed, and only partially workable – or gluing them back together with superglue, and like the melting trick using super glue was not only messy and dangerous but also caused permanent changes to the bait such as severe hardening which is kind of the opposite of the entire idea behind using soft baits….they’re soft!







