Lake Skinner 2/25
We decided to take another week off from DVL after a great day at Perris last week and head on over to Lake Skinner. Arrived at the kiosk at 5:50am with one car and a boat ahead of us. Pulled up to the ramp and found the lake level 6ft down. Launched and motored across the lake to our first spot in the East end and the first cast hits the surface at 6:15am. I decided I was going to stick with three techniques today, jigs, cranks, and blades specifically looking for pre-spawn fatties. The weather had changed last night and the air temps had cooled considerably which caused the water surface temps to drop to 54-56 and a very light cool north breeze when we first hit the water. Not quite the magic numbers to trigger the blade bite I had hoped for. Plus the lake level being down enough to where most of the tule patches were high and dry. I still threw it and got bumped a couple of times but no takers. Same for the cranks. So I started throwing the jig and the same thing, bumps but no one would inhale. So we decided to head west and worked points, ledges, rocks, and the few tule patches that remained in the water for nada. The water was almost gin clear and I was a little shocked at the lack of life everywhere we went. No grass, no weeds, no bugs, no fish, no nothing. So we went to about mid lake then decided to hit the South side.
We went up to the buoy line and worked our way east hitting any spots that might hold pre-spawners, nothing. Got half way down and spotted some LMB schoolies swimming slowly in front of some tules, so I decided screw it, I'm tying up a t-rig with a creature bait, threw it for nothing, no matter the technique or cadence, they just looked at it, then ignored it so I tied on a wacky senko and the same, just looked at it, then swam away.
As the day progressed the W-SW winds kicked up and I thought cool some chop might entice some aggression into these lazy arsed bass, still nothing and with the day winding down looking like we were going home with the skunk stank on us we made the call to hit the East end. We get there and had the whole place to ourselves. With a little over an hour left we pull into a cove and found the water temps at 60-61 degrees, stained water, and a couple of tule patches still in the water, bingo. I threw the blade and got bumped first cast. Threw it again, bump. Again, bump. Ok, change to the jig, POW, game on and all hell breaks loose after that...WFO...They hit it on the fall, swimming it, and crawling it, it didn't matter. We'd move to the next patch and same thing. By the end of that hour I had stuck 16 and my buddy stuck 7 all between 1 1/2-3 1/2lbs. No big pigs but some of those young girls had nice big bellies full of roe. No more skunk stank.
By the time we got off the water we noticed the water level had dropped another 4 inches or so so I asked Shannon what was up. She said they're dropping the lake level at least another six feet because they need to do Quagga eradication in the plumbing and that the lake should be filling up by Monday at the latest. So you guys heading out from now until Monday, heads up. Also, the few times when we crossed the lake we metered several bait balls and a couple of decent clouds all with big marks around them at about 25-35ft deep.
The fish are bunched up and moving. The key for now is wind, stained and higher water temps, and windswept structure whether it be banks, rocks, a rock, or tules. Put those together and you'll stick fish. We saw only two beds, but we weren't really looking for them.
Sorry, no pics unless they're 4lbs or up...
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Originally Posted by bassmeister
