The 136 competitors in Sunday's Sharon Hibdon Memorial Bass Tournament experienced the best that Lake Oroville has to offer; perfect Chamber of Commerce-style weather, a beautiful lake that is filled to the brim, and phenomenal numbers of eagerly-biting bass. At the current time, Lake Oroville may indeed be California's best fishing lake.

The first-place team of Joe Hinkle and Chris Ravert [both of Oroville] weighed in a 13.34 pound total for their five bass, with a best individual fish of 3.31 pounds. "The bass bite was great", observed Hinckle. "We easily released over 60 bass, and by accident also caught a limit of coho salmon, along with six or seven crappie."

Hinckle added, "We started out using six-inch swimbaits up in the west branch, and once the sun hit the water at around 10:00 AM, we switched to using Senkos in debris pockets. Those debris pockets and the sunken willow trees are just loaded with fish. The water was so clear in some areas that we could see schools of 20 or 30 bass just swimming around."

Even anglers who finished well out of the money experienced some spectacular fishing. Chico Bass Club vice-president Rich Cavanagh reported, "We found big numbers of bass, and probably released over 50 bass for the day; the fish we found were just not the right size to win. Most of our bass were caught up in the north fork, and the fish were very active both in the morning and early afternoon."

The event is a fundraiser for the Chico Bass Club, and is named for the club's longtime secretary. Proceeds benefit the Lake Oroville Florida-strain bass planting project, the Chico and Gridley kid's fishing events, and a fishing line recycling program at Horseshoe Lake and Paradise Lake.

Final Standings: Hinkle/Ravert -13.34 pounds total [$660];
Williams/White- 12.21 [$375];
Eagleton/Eagleton- 12.12 [$300];
McIntosh/McIntosh- 11.79 [$275];
Downie/Williams- 11.47 [$250];
Big Fish- Dugan McIntosh- 3.52 pounds [$265];
Joe Hinkle- 3.31 [$165];
Chris Long- 3.18 [$100]

Plenty of non-competitors were also having a fine day of fishing at Lake Oroville on Sunday, as a steady stream of successful coho salmon anglers visited the fish cleaning tables at the Spillway Launch to prepare their catch. Limits of bright 15 to 18-inch cohos were relatively commonplace.