Berryessa – January 30th

It’s been nearly a year since we bombed at Berryessa so decided to make the time to do a little prefishing. Last year we went in blind and what an awakening that was! Low water levels, my areas out of the water and just an uncomfortable feeling about what was going on.

Not wanting to repeat this, yesterday was time to do some exploring and see what we could find.

The weather started off ominously with a torrential downpour during our drive up but mostly cloudy drizzly skies greeted us when we finally got to the launch. Only one other boat had launched just before we got on the water and for the day we only saw 4 other bass boats.

Mostly nothing. We explored a number of different areas, got hammered driving around the main lake and marking almost zero fish from 10-50 feet of water. We ended up spending our first 6 hours with only one fish coming up but not hitting our lures.

At this point I (moto) was about ready to give up and call it a day but Gee wanted to try a could areas. The first produced another whole bunch of zero but then it came together. On a hunch, we tried an area and low and behold, I got a spot! Not more than a couple minutes later, Gee gets a smallie! A couple minutes after that, another spot for me. Wow, things have turned around in the waning hours of our day prefishing. Gee then lost another one and we knew we had to try this type of area again. Leaving biting fish was a little difficult but we felt good to finally find something!

We ended up repeating this in 3 other areas all close by and either getting a fish or getting bites in each of these areas. Crazy cool. Here are a couple of our fish!

Giving back...

There are so many things I (Moto) could do but never get to. I'm trying to make 2011 different and will be likely contributing to at least these two groups - Project Healing Waters for military veterans (http://www.projecthealingwaters.org/) and Casting for Recovery for Breast Cancer Patients (http://castingforrecovery.org/). They are both groups that use fly fishing to help heal and both are in need for flies and materials.

For those who don't know, I’ve been an avid fly tier in the past and have recently gotten back into tying.  I’m one who loves to try different patterns but with my tournament bass fishing, never get a chance to use them. Thankfully my Dad and one of his friends seem to be in need of flies so many have gone their way.

I do not believe they will be able to use all the flies I am planning on tying this year so decided I need to find a way to give back. That’s when the two mentioned orgs came into my radar on a quick internet search. This is my way to give a little of what I love back to people who have served our country along with those battling a disease that has touched my life.

Thank you and hope I can inspire others to help as well!

WRL Lake McClure - Jan 9th

Well, we didn't do exactly as planned (money finish). Got a small limit on dropshots and jerkbaits. 8.68 lbs was our final weight but it took a bit over 10 to cash a check. 94 boats showed up which was pretty cool!

This is another example of the Moto not being able to pre-fish with the Gee. We did get out one time but it was over a week and a half prior to the tournament which doesn't always give a great indication of what the fish will be doing. We really needed additional locations to go as our primary location did produce 2 solid fish but we didn't have enough follow-up locations to get over the top.

Gee got them dropshotting a oxblood colored worm and Moto got two on a Staysee 90 V2 with a feathered treble. Gee got our one cull fish on the jerkbait as well. The dropshot fish came in 30-70 feet of water but our jerkbait fish came right against rocky shores!

Berryessa is next on our list! This will be the season opener for the WRL Delta/Wine Region and we have to do better to have a shot at AOY!