Thunder on Folsom Lake! El Dorado Bass Tournament 4th Place

With the summer temps and dropping water level, it would be an understatement to say fishing has been pretty tough on Folsom lately,.. But, we had a scheduled tournament, spent a couple days on the water and managed to catch a few Bass.

I was partnered with Tom and we headed out Friday Sept 11, for some pre-fishing in hopes of figuring out a way to put a few legal Bass in the live well for the weigh in on Saturday. The weekend before I had taken a hike with my family down to a spot which has been out of the water for a couple weeks. I noticed a fair amount bait fish around,.. and usually, where the bait is, so goes the Bass. I shared this with my partner and thought we might want to check that out Friday. We started early and headed over near the peninsula in hopes of some top water,.. But the only fish we saw on top were carp!

We eventually started working our way up the south fork and stopped at a spot Tom said is usually pretty good. After about ten minutes and working our way down the shore, nothing! Tom decided to try one of his favorite baits & color so he squirted some stinky scent on it and made a cast towards the shore. Although we were casting towards the shore and our baits were probably landing in water that was already 4-6′ deep, his cast landed a bit out from that I guess maybe in 8-10′ of water. While I was watching it looked like his bait never made it to the bottom and it had snagged something,.. Well once that snag felt heavy, moved a little and pulled back, Tom set the hook immediately! After noticing Toms rod completely bendo, he was not gaining any line and the fish had taken a couple good runs, we both looked at each other with BIG smiles. I quickly reeled in my bait and set my rod down. Tom did an awesome job fighting the fish, very patient and calm and we eventually got a look at it as it tried to jump. I thought it was at least a 10lber! I guess they always look Soooo much bigger in the water! I was ready with the net and scooped her up. Of course high 5′s were in order! Pre-fishing or not, that was an awesome fish. Great work Tom! Next time lets get one like that on tournament day. After a few pictures, a quick weight on the scale (8.2lbs) he carefully lowered her back in the water where we caught her. Off she went to hopefully grow and spawn MANY offspring!

We eventually made it up to the spot I had mentioned with all the baitfish and fished that area for a few. I did catch a nice little Spotted Bass that coughed up a bunch of bait. Just as I had thought! With hopes of this being a good spot to hopefully put a few fish in the boat, and not wanting to burn it up, we decided to not fish it anymore and leave it for the tournament the following day. We did fish a couple other spots and then called it a day.

On tournament day we were met with cloud cover and a few scattered sprinkles. Although the clouds did roll through all day with a little rain, thunder and lightning, it did not seem to effect the fishing,.. at least not for us. Our plan was to head to the spot I had seen all the baitfish and we caught fish the day before. When we arrived and started fishing, I noticed a lot of debris in the water. I thought it must have been the wind the afternoon before,.. Then I glanced down at the depth finder and noticed the water temp read 54. I said; “that can’t be correct! It was 72 up here yesterday!” I asked Tom to check his fish finder on the front of the boat; same temp! I stuck my hand in the water, yup! COLD! Oh crap! They must been letting water out up river yesterday afternoon throughout the night! That explains all the junk in the water too! Well, needless to say, our first fishing spot was shot! If the fish were still there, they were hunkered down and not eating. I suspect they moved following the warmer water. We did find the temp break and fished it for awhile for nadda.

The fishing was poor all day with Tom catching the only fish… so far. It was getting close to weigh in time and the wind had picked up pretty good so we decided to start heading in. The wind on the main lake was blowing real good, whites caps, etc! Once we got close and were around the corner from the doc we had about 30min before weigh in. So we decided to give one more spot a try. Tom asked; “well, where do want to fish?” I replied, “I’ve done ok in that cove, lets go in there and work our way up that windy point! Can you hold us there?” He said “I’ll give it a try!” He did, and after about 20 minuets of nothing but a couple bits for nadda, I finally managed a nice smallie about 5min before we had to leave. I said to Tom, “I bet even with just two fish, we will do pretty good.” (thats sad)

With most of the other teams only catching two fish as well, we ended up getting 4th place while the winners caught the only 5 Bass limit.  Other than Tom’s 8lber, I probably would not have even written about this trip. But his fish deserved a little more that just a picture posting.

Looking forward to our upcoming Delta and Clear lake Tournaments!