Lake Oroville Jun 30, 21

[Pat Dilling]

Went to Lake Oroville with my friend Rodney.  We took his boat, he has a new Humminbird Mega 360 and I wanted to check it out.  It's pretty impressive, you can all manner of structure around the boat.  Lake Oroville is 215 feet down and continuing to drop.  It was at elevation 685, at level 665 we will run out of the last concrete ramp on the lake at Bidwell Canyon.  After that it will be a gravel ramp and 4 wheel drive to launch.  Water temperature was 81 degrees and it was a typical Oroville summertime bite  Quite a few little dinks and bait banditos along the bank.  Water was murky with about 2.5 feet of visibility.  We fished in the slot, up the North Fork, in Canyon Creek and on the steep wall going into the South Fork.  Best quality fish came on Ned rig with a Z-Man Mudbug TRD, also caught some on medium diver craw pattern crank baits and drop shot with various worms.  Robo Halogram shad worked well, but a lot of them were lost to little fish stealing them.  I saw some fish on electronics that were suspended in 10-15 feet of water.  Next trip will work on targeting them.  I actually don't mind fishing the lake when the water is low.  Seems like there are fewer boaters on the lake, especially the big wake boats.  It also gives the fish fewer places to be and we get so see and mark some of the normally under water structure for when the water comes back up(hopefully!).  No catfish this time!

[Mike Cork]

I miss Oroville. We used to catch so many fish there. We only had flashers and basic graphs back then, can't imagine fishing it with the technology and baits of today Thanks for the report and the reminiscing.

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[Pat Dilling]

I remember fishing there with you guys.  Up the Middle Fork, I always preferred the Bean Creek side and I remember you guys fishing in your Tracker on the opposite side.  I was usually throwing a jig and you guys had your hand-pour green weenies.  At the current water level there is only about 6 feet of water at Bean creek, maybe less.  Might not be able to get up there safely because of rocks in the channel.

[Mike Cork]

That is just amazing... I was talking to Gary Dobyns about this a month ago and he's afraid that fishing is on its way out in the west. Without more reservoirs to hold the water when it's there, the need is going to take over the capacity. And, no different than many places, fishing is the last concern of the law makers.

Yep loved our hand pours, back then I just couldn't figure out the jig...