Central Valley Fly Fishing Report
Captain Hogan Brown Reports on 1.9.2020
Lake Oroville Spotted Bass Fishing has been hit and miss .... which really means the bite has been compressed in small windows. My experience is the fish eat during small windows and when they are eating they jump on the fly but when they are not they are hard to get to eat. So fishing can be good for an 30-40 minutes and then shut off for a few hours then turn back on, just depends on the given day. This rain that is moving in should mix things up and get many of the creeks flowing attracting bait and bass to the running water. The Float'n Fly method has been catching the most fish with water in the 50-53 degree range but slow crawling bait fish patterns ounce you locate feeding fish has produced. Fishing on the Lake will continue to improve through late winter and spring.
Lake Shasta Bass Fishing - Took a trip up north to Lake Shasta to fish with my dear friend and guide John Fochetti out of his new boat this last week as well. First off Lake Shasta is an incredibly diverse bass fishery. ALL sorts of different structure and species of fish...we caught spots and small mouth but there are largemouth and mean mouth (smallie/spot hybrid) in the lake as well and some BIG fish as recent tournament bags have had double digit bass in them. John has the lake pretty figured out with the fly rod and once we dialed in what the fish were eating we were catching fish most places. Most fish came on small cray fish patterns dragged/jigged down slopping banks. Like Oroville this Shasta will continue to fish better and better over the next 4-6 months.
Valley Striper Fishing has been hit or miss...fishing can be really good for trophy fish when they are eating but the rivers have been crowded with gear fishermen and the fish don't eat every day. It is truly a game of putting in your time and being in the right place at the right time.
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