Am I crazy or am I the only one that loves fall bassin!

Check out this video we did a few weeks back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnFZgPoZcxU

no

Been living at a private lake most of my life. It has ginormous bass and doesn't get fished much. Regardless, its just an old hat. Havent thought about it for years though i stare at it out my window everyday.

LETS GO!!

Friend lived on a small, rather private, lake. Had Largemouth and Crappie. In general, the populations were unbalanced. Big crappie that actually grew as fast as the eastern WA fish (scales checked with the State's warm water bio). Most of the bass were small, in 6-10" range. My buddy got a 5 pounder so there were a few biggies. Shallow lake, fished from canoe, flies on or near the surface. A good basser could probably have had a fine time but would have had to leave the bass boat home as no launch. Love to find a way back...

Not doing any bass fishing, but I did catch a small LMB yesterday while trout fishing. At least I intended to be trout fishing. Caught more crappie than anything tho.

I've been wanting to try the Petaluma. Are you throwing jerkbaits like we do at San Luis and the Forebay,Salinas river etc?

Ah, the forebay at San Luis. Back in 72 or 73 I went there with my dad and his boss. Very first cast I got a 3 lb Striper. Only bite we had that day at all. The highlight was when I walked up to an overflow channel and had two Golden Eagles explode in front of me and then they chased a jackrabbit. Finally unfroze and got a picture of one of the eagles.

There are some real monsters in that lake. One evening at the forebay I had a fish on topwater every cast until I gave up. They were boiling all around me in my pontoon. It was awesome. I dig stripers.

They weren't there when we were. But that is what the hit was like. Cast, splash, fish on. I hooked a few in the Sacramento while fishing for shad. We fished Stripers quite a few times, with bait, with no success. Somewhere, way back in my slide collection, is a picture of a striper my Dad caught and me, with the striper longer than a 4 year old was tall.

I knew lots of folks (generally older guys) who would essentially plunk for Stripers and come home with the occasional 20-30 pound fish.

When I took Fish Management in college, the prof was Alex Calhoun, the head of CFG's Inland Fish Program. Told us that they had discovered that Stripers in freshwater lakes with a big forage fish base got huge. As in 40,50, 60 pound huge. He so wanted to put some in Clear Lake, which at that time had an overabundance of silversides. There were just no Stripers available to try.

There have been 100 pound plus stripers seen in San Luis. But I never seem to time that right. My friends father in law got a 43 incher last winter. On an sp minnow. I'm considering a trip there this weekend if I don't go north to fish fall steelhead and salmon on the Klamath system.

Those reservoirs often have lots of baitfish (threadfin shad and such) in the pelagic zone that few freshwater predators utilize. Stripers love it. Good luck wherever you go this weekend; sounds like good options either way.