To say its been a busy lake for fishing is definitely an understatement, for the past seven weeks we have had a major tournament of some type working the lake, combine that with several smaller club tournaments, along with your weekend anglers and finding a spot to fish or park your boat trailer can be an issue. Currently many fish have spawned but many have yet to finish the spawn and you can find many on beds either spawning or guarding the eggs. The water level is about six inches lower right now than it was for this time last year and it will definitely be another year where certain launch ramps will have to close due to the low water. The algae blooms have already started happening in the Rattlesnake and Redbud arms, so far the upper 1/2 of the lake has not experienced any blooms. Most people working the banks right now are sight fishing and trying to catch the fish off of the beds. The top water action has just started and will continue to get better as the spawned out fish will need to feed up from the rigors of spawning. The weed growth in the offshore water is already getting a good start and now the carp are spawning and thrashing around and creating floating weeds. The majority of the fisherman working the lake who are not sight fishing are using a variety of techniques, the drop shot, weightless senko, ned rig, neko rig, and shakey head are all being used to put fish in the boat. The past two weeks have been a pretty tough and very slow bite, very typical for this time of the year. It will get much better as we move through and the spawn finishes up. The annual catfish derby hits the lake the weekend of the 13, 14, and 15th of this month, that derby usually has about 800 entries. The crappie action has been very good in many areas around the lake but is starting to taper off and by the end of this month will not be near as good.
What you can expect as we go into the summer months, low water conditions will close some of the ramps, weekends will always be busier than during the week, algae blooms will continue to happen, especially on hot days. Just a reminder, the lake water temperature which is getting up to around 65 to 67 will continue to get hotter so take a picture and release the fish, don't carry them around in the live, well for pictures later. Be sure to have your boat checked and get a launching sticker before launching if you are coming from out of the area. Clear Lake despite all the fishing pressure, algae blooms, and weedy conditions, still ranks as one of the top lakes in the country and even with low water conditions we are in much better shape than many of the other lakes in California. Be safe, be courteous, take care of the fish, God Bless
What you can expect as we go into the summer months, low water conditions will close some of the ramps, weekends will always be busier than during the week, algae blooms will continue to happen, especially on hot days. Just a reminder, the lake water temperature which is getting up to around 65 to 67 will continue to get hotter so take a picture and release the fish, don't carry them around in the live, well for pictures later. Be sure to have your boat checked and get a launching sticker before launching if you are coming from out of the area. Clear Lake despite all the fishing pressure, algae blooms, and weedy conditions, still ranks as one of the top lakes in the country and even with low water conditions we are in much better shape than many of the other lakes in California. Be safe, be courteous, take care of the fish, God Bless
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