John H
06-04-2021, 03:19 PM
I did a trip to Clear Lake to check out the 4th best bass fishing lake in the United States. I figured if I am into bass fishing and a launch ramp at the 4th best lake in the U.S. is only 90 minutes from my house I should be there. It is a bit far for a day trip so I got a campsite for two nights at the State Park. The State Park has a launch ramp but they closed it the day before I arrived due to low water. That was a bit of a surprise but I found another ramp nearby so no big deal. I don’t see how this lake got its name. It is anything but clear. Maybe it was clear in the past when it was named but it is loaded with algae now. It is also loaded with bass and they run pretty big. There is no griping at Clear Lake about catching a bunch of ten inch bass. My experience was they are legitimately two to four pounds. A four pound bass is a pretty good chunk of fish. One of those is a day maker for me.
I was able to get topwater to work early and late but the 13 hours between topwater bites was tough. One evening I waded the beach in front of the campground and hooked eight and a couple of them were four pounds. That is great bass fishing in my book and enough to make the day a success for me. I fished various clousers during the day and got a few fish but they were hard to find. My observation from watching other boats was they were not catching lots of fish. There are plenty of gear guys in boats up there and I only saw a couple fish caught but I did not ask much as to how the fishing was so who knows how they were doing.
After two days of fishing I was riding my bike in Lakeport and came to the Clear Lake Outdoors Store which I think is the home of the recent world record crappie. Just for fun I went in to have a look. The guy was pretty nice so I asked him if he had anything I could put on a fly rod. He said the bass here could not be caught on a fly rod because they were too big. Sounds like a good problem to have. I told him I could deal with these big bass if he had something I could get them to bite. He thought a bit and got me a pack of Yamasenko worms, some hooks that cost almost a dollar each and a rigging tool which he showed me how to use. My first thought was this is the famous Senko you hear about all the time. These things must work because every gear guy in America is using them. They are about size of a small hot dog which seems big to me but what do I know. I was a little worried about whether I could cast the hot dog but it looked to me like I could put it under a bobber, let it fall, twitch it a couple of times and then recast as I moved along the shoreline. I bought them. The guy thought I was crazy but was pretty excited that I was going to try it and said if I could get it to work I would be on TV. I could use a little TV exposure. Long story short, I fished the hot dog the next day and caught two fish so I guess it worked. After getting a couple on the hot dog I was was eager to do some fly fishing so I went back to the clouser and got three on it so the clouser actually won the day and out fished the hot dog which made me feel good. I joke about the thing but in the future if those fish won’t grab the clouser you can be sure I will be throwing the hot dog at them. :)
I took no pictures. Sometimes you just want to fish.
I was able to get topwater to work early and late but the 13 hours between topwater bites was tough. One evening I waded the beach in front of the campground and hooked eight and a couple of them were four pounds. That is great bass fishing in my book and enough to make the day a success for me. I fished various clousers during the day and got a few fish but they were hard to find. My observation from watching other boats was they were not catching lots of fish. There are plenty of gear guys in boats up there and I only saw a couple fish caught but I did not ask much as to how the fishing was so who knows how they were doing.
After two days of fishing I was riding my bike in Lakeport and came to the Clear Lake Outdoors Store which I think is the home of the recent world record crappie. Just for fun I went in to have a look. The guy was pretty nice so I asked him if he had anything I could put on a fly rod. He said the bass here could not be caught on a fly rod because they were too big. Sounds like a good problem to have. I told him I could deal with these big bass if he had something I could get them to bite. He thought a bit and got me a pack of Yamasenko worms, some hooks that cost almost a dollar each and a rigging tool which he showed me how to use. My first thought was this is the famous Senko you hear about all the time. These things must work because every gear guy in America is using them. They are about size of a small hot dog which seems big to me but what do I know. I was a little worried about whether I could cast the hot dog but it looked to me like I could put it under a bobber, let it fall, twitch it a couple of times and then recast as I moved along the shoreline. I bought them. The guy thought I was crazy but was pretty excited that I was going to try it and said if I could get it to work I would be on TV. I could use a little TV exposure. Long story short, I fished the hot dog the next day and caught two fish so I guess it worked. After getting a couple on the hot dog I was was eager to do some fly fishing so I went back to the clouser and got three on it so the clouser actually won the day and out fished the hot dog which made me feel good. I joke about the thing but in the future if those fish won’t grab the clouser you can be sure I will be throwing the hot dog at them. :)
I took no pictures. Sometimes you just want to fish.