Angling Report - Lake Berryessa - 10/05/21

Posted by zeth on October 8, 2021

Well getting to writing this a little late so hopefully I get all the details correct. I met a buddy of mine today who was down from Washington. We got out early and got to the main lake. Found shad schooled up and bass stacked pushing shad and busting all over. A lot of birds around as well which was interesting because as the bite died down and the shad dispersed so too did the birds.  The wind picked up a little bit though so that may have made the birds move as well. The bite was interesting. We started out spooning but couldn't get any of the I'd say 15+ separate schools of fish to fire as we worked our way from around 60' to 15'.  Fish were busting everywhere. Eventually we were getting blow ups on topwater. Some from BIGGS. But short striking so something about the presentation may have been off. I was throwing an Ima Skimmer at the blow ups. I did manage to hook up with one as seen in the photo. My partner decided to put on a dropshot. He got bit. A smallmouth. We threw 110 size jerkbaits as well but I think they were just too big as the bass were keyed in on the smaller shad. I had limited tackle with me but otherwise would have tossed a popper, smaller sized prop bait, Jackall Riser or similar. I even have a tiny buzzbait that could have worked well. I would think (secret revealed) as well a tiny 1/4oz. or so blade bait reeled could have been good as well. I had none with me as we were in his boat. 

As the above bite disappeared and with few actual hook-ups we decided to move to a main lake pocket and work our way out to a point. My partner got a decent spot on a Spinnerbait. 

Then we worked out way back into the arms and found that fish were starting to stack up on the main points in the arms. We started catching spots and smallmouth on jigging spoons despite the non-presence of shad, dropshot and I believe he got one on a spinnerbait near a shallow laydown.  My past two visits revealed no fish on the points but now they were there. We were pre-frontal conditions with the wind picking up so there was a small chop on the surface which may have set things up right for this.  It was time to go not long after however, I am confident we could have gotten on this as a pattern and dialed it in a bit and got a few more fish in the boat.