danthefisherman Posted January 11, 2019 Report Share Posted January 11, 2019 I don't have much experience under my belt when it comes to fishing for spotted bass, but I have caught a few before on conventional finesse tackle. This past week I was on vacation in the Angels Camp area and had the chance to fish New Melones Reservoir from a new inflatable kayak gifted to my family over the Christmas holidays. I normally frequent shallow water, grassy lakes and streams fishing from shore, so I'm a bit out of my confort zone in deep and rocky waters on a kayak. Fishing all day Monday with no results was a bit of a letdown. We had a big rain come in Sunday evening through the night so I was hoping the trout and bass were pushing shallow with the runoff. I fished a homemade 6" trout glide most of the time anywhere from 0 - 40 feet deep and picked up a small kastmaster every now and then to try locating the trout. Saw a few trout surface in a grassy cove and a local angler pulled in a nice carp, but other than that we saw no sign of the bass. My brother and I almost didn't try again on Tuesday, but the lake was so close to where we were staying we figured we'd give it another go. I wasn't expecting any action at all and was actually focused on catching those surfacing trout that I saw earlier. A few hours passed without a sniff, so I started to mess around a bit tying on a bright chartreuse wacky rigged senko (shame on me) since it could probably be seen a mile away in the crystal clear water. I had no clue where to fish since I had don't have a graph and had already fished most of the nearby shoreline and open water, so I made my way to the only isolated hard structure that I could see: one of the huge bridge pier columns from the highway way overhead. I spent a good amount of time getting a feel for the bottom contour of the shoreline at the base of the bridge first with the senko and really liked what I felt. I was snagging up in some wood and there was a nice deep pocket where the bank jutted out with the bridge. Earlier on I had found a 6" paddle tail swimbait rigged on a flashy swimmer style swimbait hook, so I tied that on to probe deep cover. I paddled out to the first bridge column which was in 150 - 175 feet of water according to a topographic map I found and planned to fish it at the very bottom. Let me just say that it takes a good while for a weightless senko to sink 150+ feet haha. At this point I was just messing around though, so it came to my surprise that I set into a healthy 1lb 10oz spotted bass on my second drop with the senko. This fish was my new personal best spotted bass after only fishing for them three times haha. It only registered in my brain that I actually had a fish on about halfway through the long fight to bring the fish to the surface. I let the fish go after a quick picture and immediately picked up the swimbait I had found earlier, casting it past the column and right along the edge of it. The swimbait hit bottom a lot faster than the senko, and I fished it slowly on bottom right up against the bridge column. Not a sniff. I paddled to the opposite side of the column and did the same thing, crawling the swimbait right along where the bridge column met the bottom of the lake. The bait just about cleared the bridge when a good fish stopped it dead. I slammed my rod back on my new personal best spotted bass at 3lb 7oz and finally got her into the net after a very long and stressful battle. I was a bit worried because her air bladder was pretty messed up coming from so deep and she was coughing up crawdads all over me, but she swam right down strong after the release and never came up again so I was pumped! Probably not a very big bass by most standards, but considering that it was my third time fishing spotted bass and a three pound largemouth is a good fish at our homelake (I haven't caught one here of this size since January 2018) I was pretty happy. To see her able to swim away and get bigger was even better! We didn't catch anything else for the remainder of the day, but that's ok and we'll be back! Thanks for reading! bigbass45, Randykast, Caldeltarat and 10 others 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VolunteerSwimbaits Posted January 11, 2019 Report Share Posted January 11, 2019 Awesome fish, and an awesome story. Beats my 2.1 lb spot. Great job, and great patience with that wacky rig! Haha, i cant even fish a rof 5 hudd cause i thought waiting 50 seconds to sink was too much. Good job man. danthefisherman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danthefisherman Posted January 11, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2019 16 minutes ago, VolunteerSwimbaits said: Awesome fish, and an awesome story. Beats my 2.1 lb spot. Great job, and great patience with that wacky rig! Haha, i cant even fish a rof 5 hudd cause i thought waiting 50 seconds to sink was too much. Good job man. It took patience for sure haha...thanks man! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassbass Posted January 11, 2019 Report Share Posted January 11, 2019 Congratulations danthefisherman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbass45 Posted January 11, 2019 Report Share Posted January 11, 2019 Nice fish, you earned it. PB's are always so exciting. danthefisherman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsbadbassin89 Posted January 11, 2019 Report Share Posted January 11, 2019 That’s awesome man nice job danthefisherman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randykast Posted January 11, 2019 Report Share Posted January 11, 2019 Nice Dan! Thanks for sharing. danthefisherman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danthefisherman Posted January 11, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2019 Thanks for the kind words gentlemen! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glidepride Posted January 12, 2019 Report Share Posted January 12, 2019 Thats a spotted slaunch donkey. Great catch. Those spots only get bigger around from there. danthefisherman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogervang Posted January 12, 2019 Report Share Posted January 12, 2019 Congrats! I actually like fishing for spots more than I do large mouth. danthefisherman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danthefisherman Posted January 13, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2019 17 hours ago, Rogervang said: Congrats! I actually like fishing for spots more than I do large mouth. They sure have spunk when you hook into one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishstix024 Posted January 14, 2019 Report Share Posted January 14, 2019 (edited) Great write up. Melones can be daunting if you've never been there. Like you said it's huge and deeeep!! I've been fishing up there since Xmas break and have been killing them on finesse. 20-30 fish per trip dragging drop shots and ned rigs. Nothing huge but tons of those 1-3lb spots. The water temps are supriseingly warm, 52-55 degrees. So, when those storms roll in we've had some decent response on the glides up shallow. I've had a couple fish nose or grab the 250 but haven't hooked any. Last week I had a slob 8-9lb largie hot on my Hudd but also didn't commit. I'm ready for spring, when those fish get shallow and the glidebait bite goes off! There are some GIANT spots in there...I saw a few over 7lbs last spring.. Here's a few fish from last year. Edited January 14, 2019 by Fishstix024 basskickinrednick, danthefisherman and porkmeatballs 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danthefisherman Posted January 14, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 14, 2019 1 hour ago, Fishstix024 said: Great write up. Melones can be daunting if you've never been there. Like you said it's huge and deeeep!! I've been fishing up there since Xmas break and have been killing them on finesse. 20-30 fish per trip dragging drop shots and ned rigs. Nothing huge but tons of those 1-3lb spots. The water temps are supriseingly warm, 52-55 degrees. So, when those storms roll in we've had some decent response on the glides up shallow. I've had a couple fish nose or grab the 250 but haven't hooked any. Last week I had a slob 8-9lb largie hot on my Hudd but also didn't commit. I'm ready for spring, when those fish get shallow and the glidebait bite goes off! There are some GIANT spots in there...I saw a few over 7lbs last spring.. Here's a few fish from last year. Awesome catches man, well done! Yeah I know there are some big fish to be had at Melones if you know how to locate and catch them...and I even heard a report of someone landing a 12lber there a few weeks ago or something. It's kind of hard to figure out the lake with no electronics and infrequent visits, but I'll be back for sure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthewbaver Posted February 13, 2019 Report Share Posted February 13, 2019 Just keep at it fish like any other lake, spots will eat giant swimbaits don't be put off because they are smaller or have smaller mouths yeah you won't catch as many but the ones you do get are beasts, I think I am on my 4th trip now and I have only got 4 bites and no fish all my baits are over 8 inches and I keep getting short strikes I know I can put a worm on and catch 100 but have to keep the mind right! Find your comfort zone......... danthefisherman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassing305 Posted February 13, 2019 Report Share Posted February 13, 2019 Congratulations on your new personal best spotted bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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