Fishing Clearlake is by far my favorite thing to do a long with spending time with my wife and our dogs. This Memorial day weekend brought us more in-climate weather. Seems to be the theme this year. Wind, thunderstorms, chilly temps, they just keep coming. RB Bass Angler Mike Tremont and myself fished the BBT Tournament on Memorial Day weekend this past Saturday. To our surprise we had a 103 boat field. I have a house at the lake so I fish here often. Friday we practiced for a 1/2  day due to needing to get work done at the house. We really didn’t find much as we avoided the areas that i wanted to focus on. Catching fish is not a problem. You can pretty much fish how you like to fish and catch em. There is a huge population of 1 1/2 lb to 2 3/4 lb fish in the lake. That said those wont get you very far in a tournament. Due to weather and water temps we decided to focus outside of spawning areas that had rock. The quality fish Ive caught the past few weeks have all been on a G Money Jig and Strike King Rage Bug, so we knew this is what we were gonna focus on. Our practice day verified this and we found one additional area to fish.

Tournament day brought wind, and more wind. Thankfully we have an Ultrex on the boat because all of out areas were in direct fire of the wind. Im pretty sure we almost fell in as many bites as we got in our starting spot. Our starting spot was a rocky bank that slowly tapered out until the 20 ft mark where it then dropped off. The fish were roaming the area so we would set the spot lock and fan cast around. Mike hooked up on his 3rd cast, we later discovered that fish was close to 8lbs although we figured 5 at the time. I continued to alternate between a swim jig and a G Money Football head paired with a Strike King PBJ Structure Bug trailer. The wind was making it difficult to feel bites and we missed more then either of us cares to admit. 30 minuted after Mikes fish was in the boat I set the hook on what turned out to be the 3rd Big Fish at 8.16lbs. We continued to miss bites, have them come unbuttoned, or break off. Just kind of the way it is in the conditions we had.

We worked the area for 4 hours and then chose to move on. Shortly after arriving at our second stop I hooked a 3 lb beauty. Same type of bank and the same G Money Jig combo with the Strike King trailer. Mike broke one or two off in this spot and we eventually moved on and changed gears. I had a protected spawning bay that Id been blasting them in. Problem was not much for quality, so we were looking for one 4 lb bite here. After about 7 fish I hooked one close to 3 lbs and we made a cull. At this point the wind was laying down and the lake activity was really picking up. For those that don’t know, boat traffic has a tendency to shut down Clearlake Bass for a day. Well this is what it did. Bites became farther and fewer between. We decided to head back to our starting spot but fish it a bit deeper. After an hour and no improvement we went hunting elsewhere while working back towards weigh in. We felt we needed one more cull to be in contention. The sun was high and the wind was calmer now. I felt like I should rig a senko but was having a hard time putting the jig down

As the day came to an end we were not able to cull any of our 2 1/2 lb fish. So with 3 2 1/2 lbers and 2 8 lbers we went to weigh in. It turned out to be just enough and we ended up with the W and a few grand in our pockets. We’d like to thank Randy Pringle and the entire BBT staff for the opportunity. Our wives for tolerating our passion to chase fish. Our sponsors for the support. I have added links to the products used. In the mean time get out there and catch some bass. Introduce a kid to the sport and have fun.

Thanks for reading
RB Bass Angler
Sean Wayman