Lake Stafford is off to a good start. The water is high and clear with plenty of emerging vegetation and piles of sunken driftwood. Whilst Feb. gave us a great false spring punctuated by a killer reaction bite on the golf course side, March is even better. Although, “saturation” baits like Senkos, Tubes, Superflukes, Beavers, Finesse Worms, Brush Hawgs, and Lizards fished as weightless as possible are the king now, not reaction baits.

I fished Sunday (3/9) and caught one “large” fish. A 4.1 lb Female on a ½ oz spinnerbait at dawn, but with the sun directly on the water and no wind to speak of I caught all the rest of my fish flipping a 5” boom boom tube in watermelon seed on a 5/0 EWG hook and a 1 oz tungsten bullet (2 fish), a 6” green pumpkin lizard on a ½ oz. Carolina rig (2 fish), and a 5” Senko in Rootbeer with Gold and Red Flake on a 5/0 EWG Hook (6 fish).

If the wind had picked up I would have thrown my ½ oz spinner bait (home made double gold willow blades), my LV- MAX 500 in Mad Craw, my favorite ½ oz white booyah swim jig with a seizmic white toad for a trailer, and a Luckycraft pointer 100 in Ghost Minnow or Aurora Black.

The north end of Clearlake is being swarmed with 1-3 lb males hitting anything that moves from 6” of water to 6’ of water. There are big females 3-12 lb stacking up in the first deep drop offs outside of the shallow flats.  The shallow males are cruising and chewing on these spawning flats and although they are not building and locking onto beds, they are aggressive and territorial.

These fish are suckers for Wacky rigged Senkos in the 4”-5” sizes in Watermelon, Green Pumpkin, Smoke, etc., but nothing will piss them off more than outrageous float worm colored Senkos like Hot Pink, Neon Orange, Chartreuse, White, or Methiolate.

If you get on them while the sun is still hot on the water then spinnerbaits, lipless cranks, poppers and jerkbaits will be very effective. To give you an example, I have a customer/friend who caught 25 bass in the 1lb – 3lb range over a 3 hour period and he was fishing from shore with a Methiolate 5” Senko rigged wacky style.

For the big girls just look for the nearest drop off around the edges of any shallow flat that is infested with males cruising around and chewing. Target these fish with ½ oz spinnerbaits double willow in white or white/chartreuse with a trailer and a trailer hook, or a lipless crank like the LV-500 in Mad Craw or Gold, smaller Swimbaits in Bluegill, Crappy, and Hitch patterns like 5” Storm Swimshad in Chartreuse Shiner, the Castaic Platinum Series in Bluegill or the Basstrix 5” paddle tail rigged on a ½ oz blade runner chinspin or on a roadrunner style ½ oz house head if you are a fast learner. I would also choose to target these big pre-spawn girls with a ½ oz swim jig in white with a white seizmic toad trailer, a ½ oz chatter type bait in white or white/chartreuse and a ½ oz – 2 oz flipping jig in black with a blue trailer or a green pumpkin with a green pumpkin trailer.

I would let my flipping jig get into brush or wood and then bang it around in the branches, but the rest of the baits (all horizontal) I would retrieve at a moderate pace just off the brush or wood (yes, you should fish in or through heavy cover most of the year) but these fish are almost suspended in stacks off the cover or at least close to it. If you find a perfect drop off (staging area) that has no fish on it in the morning, be sure to come back and check on it throughout the day.

This info is good all over Clearlake but especially in the North end, and with more than 100 miles of shoreline there are tons of perfect spots for this pattern. That said, I have a “milk run” of spots that have produced fish for me under these conditions year after year. One is the state park, with clear water, tons of wood, tons of backwater, and lots of sand – bass love to spawn on sand.