Bay Area Freshwater - Lake Del Valle 2011

As I try to get this blog up to speed with the past few fishing outings, I thought I'd throw together all of the freshwater excursions of the past few months into one post.

Freshwater fishing in the Bay Area is typically a tough nut to crack. I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, and recently spent two wonderful years living in Ithaca, New York, so my sense of 'normal' freshwater fishing is a bit skewed. Relative to those two locations, the Bay Area has a relatively enormous population and a relative paucity of freshwater lakes, rivers, and reservoirs. I'm not much for drop-shotting finesse worms in 45 feet of water, so my local freshwater fishing is usually limited to early-season and/or the Delta. Add in the fact that I am boat-less and must depend on rentals, and that winnows down the range of options even further. All that said, fishing's fishing, and there are any number of old sayings about good days and bad days that I won't bore you with; suffice it to say that none of the above ever really prevents me from getting in time on the water.

First day of freshwater for me this year was April 9. My car said it was 37F degrees outside when I parked at the Lake Del Valle marina. I knew it would be cold...but 37 was still surprising. I was thinking that I should have brought gloves as I motored out onto the lake just as the sun was cresting the East Bay hills.

Sunrise on Lake Del Valle - beautiful and cold

With water temps in the low to mid-50s, I wasn't expecting a terribly active bite, but I did hope that as the sun rose, it might pick up. Started out tossing an EP Bluegill fly into submerged timber and tules along the shoreline and in various coves for nothing. Switched to tossing a wacky rigged senko in similar areas and soon picked up this guy - a cute Del Valle Smallie.

At least the skunk was off the boat early...

Stuck with the Senko for a bit, and as the sun came up, picked up an LV500 and started bombing that around, covering points, coves, and flooded brush/timber. It's a great bait in that you can cast it a country mile with great accuracy, and cover enormous swaths of water with one cast. It's not so great a bait when the fish are apparently too sluggish to chase it down, as they were that day. Did see a Bobcat, though.

Switched back to the Senko and found a nice spot where I pulled out the two best fish of the day - a chunky largemouth and a really pretty smallie that treated me to one spectacular jump.

Nice smallie on the wacky-rigged Senko

Picked up a couple dinks here and there to close out the day. All in all it never really warmed up much, as the high for the day was probably barely 60F. Used a variety of tackle, though the wacky-rigged Senko in any of the dark green colors caught all the fish. Medium power Loomis Escape and a Stella 2500.

I visited Del Valle once more, in late June. A very different lake this time - much hotter, and also really crowded. I got to the marina/park entrance around 5:45am and found myself about tenth in line, waiting for the 6am open. A number of cars and trailers showed up after me so that by the time they opened there was a line of at least 20 cars/trailers. And it showed on the lake that day. Del Valle is not a big lake - about 750 acres or so - and it gets crowded easily. By 11am, a 180 degree view of the water in front of me would typically show 7 or 8 boats! Every cove, every point, almost every attractive stretch of shoreline would have a boat on it; even if you found an opening, you knew it had just been fished by somebody else. I managed a couple dink bass, and one Rainbow trout on the 8wt.

Del Valle Rainbow on a Turpin's Messy Minnow

Ultimately I'd rather battle weekend pleasure-boating crowds on the Delta than have to fight for turf on Lake Del Valle, so I don't think I'll be going back during the summer. There are stripers in Del Valle which would be great to get into, though it seems that during the summer, the best way to target them is in deep water using slow-trolled cut bait.