March and April at Lake Berryessa

March and April found great fishing at Lake Berryessa

The warm weather after the last storms brought the fish up shallow to spawn giving us many choices. Early March found the fish on points leading into coves then once the water warmed into the high 50’s the bass moved into the coves along the sunny walls. The north facing walls with full sun were the best. It didn’t matter if you fished the main lake or the narrows the fish moved up and were biting.

In early March we were getting 20to 30 fish a day and now in April it’s 30 to 70 a day and should be good for another month or so.

The best baits were 5″ Senko in Baby Bass and Dropshotting a 4″ Fat Robo Worm in Aaron’s Magic or MM3 fished in 3 to 20ft. When you run a cross a bed fish the Yamamoto Shad Shape worm was the trick in Baby Bass color.

We rigged the senko wacky with 1/16 nail weight and a O-Ring and a Gamakatsu Aaron’s DropShot Hook 1/0 size and the same hook on the dropshot only in #1 size. Using an open hook snags a lot more but we got more bites and landed more fish. If you’re fishing the trees you’ll have to switch up to a Texas Rig drop shot with a Gamakatsu extra wide gap hook #1 or 1/0

If you want to fish a little faster there been a good reaction bite on jerkbaits, spinnerbait and S-Wavers.

The jerkbait I like is the DUO 120SP in Threadfin Shad color – toss it out 5 to 10 ft form the bank jerk it down twice and let ti sit for 10 seconds then repeat. The fish are in 5 to 20 ft and will come up for it if you let it sit for a bit.

Spinnerbait by far the best one there is the 1/2oz Shad spinnerbait with gold and silver willow blades. Like the jerkbait toss it 5ft from the bank but don’t stop it just a slow steady retrieve has been working letting the bait go down to 10ft or so then when you feel a bite don’t jerk because you will miss the fish, let it load up (feel the weight of the fish) then jerk.

There’s also a decent jointed swimbait bite where I was using the River2Sea S-Waver 120 in light trout. This bait toss it up close to the bank and reel it back slow with a twitch or two mid way back to the boat.  Keep an eye out because you’ll have a lot of big followers. Sometimes you can get them to bite with speeding it up and stopping it.