Black Butte Lake + Update

Went camping out at black butte lake this Saturday night and had a great time. Figured I would take some worms and try for some kitties. Even though there was a (or perhaps due to the) full moon, the bite was off. I tried a bottom feeding rig and a slip sinker rig at various depths and no bites. Interestingly enough the next morning I went out again. I threw out a popper and a torpedo and no bites in addition to a slip sinker rig. The sun came out and the day began getting hotter.  I was sitting with my buddy Jaime and I dazed off for a minute or two. 

At about 720 am he noticed (and I missed) that my bobber had gone under. I reeled in but there was nothing on the line and my worm was gone. After that I threw my line out again, I lowered my depth a little bit and sure enough, bam! Fish on! I started reeling in a nice little bass but when I had him at shore and in sight, he shook his head loose and swam away. I threw it out again and boom, another fish on. This time it was 1 small but fat 10 in. channel catfish. I released him and threw out two rods. Both were getting bit for about 10 minutes and then all of a sudden the bite stopped. I tried changing my depths again to see if they were at a different depth but they weren’t/ it seemed like they were gone so I went up to eat breakfast. Only one small catfish but at least I beat the skunk!

In some other news, according to UPS, my fly rod should be in tomorrow and I am beyond excited to get it. I went to Guns fishing and other stuff in Vacaville, ca. I was just going to buy a couple of flies, and a couple of leaders and ended up dropping 40 bucks in five minutes on mostly just flies with no problem at all! When I get my rod hopefully I will be able to take it out somewhere and test it out.

Updates: Labor Day Weekend

September 1st - My Parents went camping and so i joined them for a day. Since the last time that i fished black butte I didn't even get a bite, I wasn't expecting much action. i set up my little Zebco Genesis with a slip sinker aand floated my worm. within a few minutes I had a small largemouth on the line. After getting him off of my line I released him to grow another day. After that I was able to hook into three more small catfish. Even though nothing was worth keeping, it felt good to catch these fish, the most i have caught in Black butte in one day. In other words, at least I didn't get skunked!!

September 2nd - The very next day I was out on the water again, different waters, of course. I fished Putah for Largemouth and sure enough I caught a small one. What is with all the small bass? I need to hook into a 5+ pounder here pretty soon!

Thanks to my lovely wife for snapping the picture.

September 3rd- (Taking advantage of the three day weekend) I fished South Lake Tahoe for the first time ever. We were only there for two days and my wife wanted me to do less fishing and spend more time with her. She did however let me fish a bit so I found the nearest shore line, bought a carton of worms and hit the water. Unfortunately, not even a bite. It didn't seem like the best place to fish the lake, but like i said, i was limited in time. Next time, I will have to find a place where a creek is feeding into a lake. I'm sure I will find fish there. I was also able to fish the American river as it went through the mountains for about a half hour. Didn't catch anything, but lovely country nonetheless!

Updates!

Seems like I don't fish enough anymore! Or at least not enough to keep things interesting here at the old blog. As i write to you I am sitting in the great state of Washington where I hoped to go fishing with my brother in law however, it looks like it's not gonna happen. So, I figured I would give you a few fishing reports.

Black butte Lake - August 11th - skunked! the water was low, I mean super low! The park rangers told us that the lake was 1/3 of its usual capacity. With 6 lines in the water, we didn't even get a bite!

Yolo Bypass - August 16th -  I basically had a couple of hours off so I decided to go fishing with my buddy art who is ADD and can't stare at a fishing pole for the life of him! I am the only one who got a little action by catching myself a little 12 in catfish.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll get out on the water as soon as I can and when I do I will let you guys know. Until I do, you guys keep catching those fish folks and break that bank!

Fishing Reports??

Does anybody have a Black Butte Lake fishing report?? I find myself searching the internet on this quite often! Black Butte Lake is a lake in Northern California about 20 minutes west of Orland, CA. It is known as a decent smallmouth, largemouth and spotted  bass fishery and an exceptional crappie and monster catfish mecca. With all that information you would think you would be able to find a single fishing report on it, but not at all. Or at least nothing recent. 

The sites that I frequent for my fishing reports include:

• Western bass
• Nor Cal Fishing News
• My Outdoor Buddy

Not a single one covers Black butte lake on a regular basis. One of the moderators told me it had to do with lack of a reliable source for a fishing report. While this is an acceptable answer, it still doesn’t give me what I want. 

So this is what I dream about:  One fishing report source! One single stop where I could check and get a report on any water I desire, not just the popular (larger) ones.  And I don’t just mean this for the one lake I’m ranting about, but all lakes and (dare I dream) all water ways out there.  You would think this would be easy, but it isn’t. By the way, I have attempted to make such groups on face book and on other social networking sites with no avail. 

The problems:

• Lack of a reliable source- Nobody really checks how many of each type of fish people are catching at each spot. Who has time for that? What about having people log in themselves and tell you what they are catching? See the last bullet on this list.
• People don’t want to share their spots – It’s a time-honored tradition. You have your secret fishing spots and you don’t want anybody to know about them. Especially if you are a bank angler in which case, the few spots we can access, we don’t want to share not only due to over-fishing an area, but this also brings morons who litter!
• Some people aren’t internet savy – just because me, my faithful readers, and fellow bloggers are able to write blogs and check websites and send fishing reports doesn’t mean everybody else who can cast the ol rod n reel can also handle this whole “internet, computer” thing!
• Some people just don’t want to- Why update a fishing page when I could be fishing more? Or doing something else or doing nothing for that matter?

That being said, This weekend I will be at black butte lake celebrating my buddy Dave’s last few days as a free man (bachelor party)! I will let you guys know what is biting and what we are catching. Apparently “BREAKING THE BANK HAS THE EXCLUSIVE OFFICIAL BLACK BUTTE LAKE FISHING REPORT” of the week, lol

Update: Black Butte Lake - 6/23-624

So fishing out at Black Butte Lake was an interesting time. we just happened to plan our trip for the coldest weekend of the summer. By 8pm instead of t-shirts and and flip flops we had to change to sweatshirts and shoes. needless to say this didn't affect our fishing too well. At about 820, the sun was setting and six of us were looking to catch some bass. So we used poppers, crank baits, floating worms, rubber frogs, etc. and nothing. at one point i rigged up for catfish and nothing! I thought it might be just us but on the same night, my buddy was on the other side of black butte lake and he told me they weren't catching anything either. So at around 1030 we called it a night.

The next morning I woke up at 5am to see one of those amazing black butte lake sunrises that I have come to love.
The deer were hanging around our camp, everybody was asleep but I had one thing on my mind, CATCHING FISH! So there I was 5am, sun rising, diet pepsi in hand, and a popper ready to bring me some fish. I went up and down that lake shore and I didn't catch a thing. I switched up to a rubber frog and same thing. Eventually i got tired so I decided to set up my chair and just fish for panfish with a regular old worm and bobber. I sat there, almost falling asleep when all of a sudden I saw my bobber go under. It woke me right up and I reeled in only to find my worm had been eaten. this was my first encounter with a fish all weekend and i wasn't about to let it go. I quickly hooked another worm and within moments I had a fish on. i reeled the sucker in and at one moment it felt like he swam around a branch or something, trying to escape. I managed to get him out and reeoed him into shore only to find... A Pikeminnow!

I was really disappointed when I saw this thing. Early last week i had read a fishing report saying that black butte was being overrun by these fish but it was earlier this year that my buddy caught some bass here and late last year when we were hooking in some catfish. But it looked like the report was true. While fishing the sac for striper and catfish we had run into a few of these suckers... big ones and so it was only a matter of time before we ran into them in our lakes. I'm not sure if there is a DFG order to "kill by removing the head" but if not, there should be.

Well anyway, that was my weekend at black butte. Haven't been out fishing much since i got married which explains the lack of posting. Nonetheless, As soon as I get out on that water I will let you guys know how I do.

Now for the question of the day: Experienced anglers and novices, what has been your experience with the Sacramento pikeminnow aka "squawfish" aka "pike?" You guys catching any by mistake? are they invading your favorite fishing holes?

Update: Black Butte Lake - 3/3/12

We hit Black Butte Lake at about 5pm. The water levels were EXTEMELY low. We had to go way out in the middle of the lake to access the water. We had just enough time to rig up our lines and throw them in before the sun set over the hills, leaving us with limited daylight.

I threw in a slip sinker rig for trout using powerbait and another pole with a sinker slider and magic bait for catfish. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch a thing. My buddy Dave is a bit more seasoned than I am so he borrowed a paddle boat to head out to the middle of the lake. He floated worms, rooster tails, cast masters and didn’t end up catching anything until he hit the shore and caught the last fish of the night (13 in, catfish) from the bank using chicken livers. 

My buddy Lee is the least experienced of the three so he used two poles with the same rig. He learned this method from a friend of his, he uses a slip sinker and injects a worm with air using a syringe in order to make it float. Good little technique and it caught him a nice 14 inch Largemouth. 

Unfortunately I was the only one that got skunked. BUT, I did end up walking the bank at 2 AM and found a nice 4-foot striper net that some fisherman had probably forgotten. So even though I didn’t catch anyfish, I didn’t go home empty handed!

Never Forget…

The bait! And while that is true, it’s not the most important part of fishing! While the mere title implies that you are there to catch or at least attempt to catch fish, That’s not all it is about. Given that sometimes you might go fishing alone with the pure intent of catching fish, There is so much more to enjoy!

The View!- You have to understand, we’re talking about some of the most beautiful places on earth here. We’re talking about water cutting a path through otherwise plain looking terrain. And sometimes the landscape matches the water, creating a masterpiece that only God could create!

Relaxation - If you’re like me, you need a break from the real world. A time away from the daily grind, the noisy city and the stress. Sometimes you just need to set up your rig, cast, listen to the water and chill… and then you get a bite…!

Company – Not many places for male camaraderie anymore. There are not many pool halls around, barber shops are nearly extinct and some of us have manlier things to do than play video games! But a bunch of buddies trash-talking each other, hanging out with the possibility of catching and cooking your own dinner… There’s nothing better!

Learning/teaching – …Teach a man to fish… and you will have a damn good time! If you’re anything like me, you not only want to learn how to catch every fish, you not only want to break the bank… but you also want to teach others how to do the same thing! Remember, when all these electronics crumble, and we have to live off the fat of the land again, Outdoorsmen (and women) will be kings (and queens)!

The drinks! – (optional) not sure which way your reed sways, but I like to have a cold beverage sometimes when I go fishing, especially on a hot day! Just thinking about a cold brew on a hot day makes me wish for summer to come quickly!

This weekend will be a cool one. It’s supposed to be 72 degrees during the day and 40 at night. I’ll be on the banks of black butte lake fishing for trout and large catfish with my buddies! I’ll let you know if we catch any fish. My hope is that I catch a huge one... after all, it IS the most important part of fishing! ;)