Lake Del Valle Update

 

Here’s a fishing update from Capt. Dan Hollis of Livermore’s Lake Del Valle:

Stephanie Brocklesby with a
Stephanie Brocklesby with a 10-pound, 9-ounce rainbow caught on a gold Kastmaster. (LAKE DEL VALLE)

Water temperature climbed up to 58 degrees this week, shutting down the bite.  That quick change in temp gave the trout lockjaw not wanting to feed except early morning and in the last few hours of the day went the lake cools down.  Congratulations to Mr.Justin Huff who caught his first fish on Saturday, it was a 6.4-pound trout on Powerbait from the west area; nice fish, Justin.  Another fisherman who’s dominating the trout scene is Robert Bryan; in the last three weeks he has caught three trout over 10 pounds, including his 12.5-pounder he got this week. 

     Bass are starting to build beds and are in full-swing prespawn patterns.  Although they are still biting Robo Worms and Senkos, we are starting to catch them on crankbaits and jerkbaits worked slow over the visible beds.  Mostly smallmouth are being caught because the water is still a little chilly.  When the water warms up the largemouth will become super active and start to actively feed on the shad schools when they raise to the surface and move into the warmer water.  Until then, try bouncing a football jig through the beds, sometimes that will produce a very large fish either smallmouth or largemouth even big cats have been known to grab a jig if given the opportunity, especially if your using scent enhancers such as pro-cure, smelly jelly or countless others.  if you are going to jig for fish I strongly recommend a crawdad plastic trailer and the scents you use make sure it is crawdad.  Crawdaddys have a very unique smell in the aquatic world, because their one of the only freshwater crustaceans here in Del Valle so fish can zero in on it and know exactly what it is!
     Striped bass showed no interest in any lures or cut bait this week.  I heard there was a boil in swallow bay early in the morning but none of them hit the Heddon Zara spook that was thrown into the boil.  It’s still very early to be seeing boils but, the warm weather can cause premature spring activity.  If this warm weather continues we may see a phenomenal summer striper bite.  That’s all for this week Good luck.

http://www.ebparks.org/parks/del_valle

888-327-2757 Option 3 ext. 4524