The Bait Ball Experience

[John H]

I fished Berryessa yesterday and the bobber was not getting them. It seems like the bass got off the shoreline which I did not expect to happen for a few more weeks. There were fish chasing bait in Markley Cove on the way out and we got a couple but they were pretty scattered so we moved on. We cruised around a bit looking at the graph and throwing clousers and bobbers in a few spots but did not find many fish. Late morning we found a bait ball in a cove that had some bass on it. They grabbed pretty eagerly at first but then wised up to our tricks and moved out of there. There were still some around but they would mostly follow and not bite. I expect the shad in the ball were happy to have us run off the bass. If I had it to do over again I would have beached the boat and cast from the shore to avoid spooking the fish. We found a bait ball a few years ago while walking the shoreline and were able to fish it for a long time without chasing off the bass. For the day we got a red ear sun fish, a crappie, largemouth, smallmouth and spots. If you count the snagged shad we got six species for the day. Fun time and it was good to get the bait ball experience.


Snagged shad from the bait ball and the fly I had on at the time. Being bait is a tough life.


Chunky largemouth in the green Berryessa water.