Thread: 06/21/2016 Indian Valley Reservoir Report

WARNING! Read at your leisure.
The triple digit hot city weather led me to higher elevation Tuesday June 21^st. Lake County requires boat inspection, so I did not mind the peaceful drive over to clear lake bait and tackle. I recommend paying them a visit if you are planning to fish on clear lake. Nice people there. Anyhow, the boat inspection fee is $25 and only lasts 30 days which in my opinion is ridiculous and makes absolutely no sense.
Arrived on Indian Valley reservoir at 7 a.m., the lake is 90% full and water clarity is 2ft deep depending on location. The lake does have a thermocline between 13ft-18ft. Weather in the morning was in the 60’s and climbed to the low 90’s by noon.
From 7am-8am, I trolled the old creek channel in the main body using light jigs and crank baits around 10ft deep. Only landed 9” crappies. Lots of catfish were jumping which from past experiences, is a bad location to find crappies. Left the main lake body and found a small school of crappies in a small cove. Eventually, I left the cove after pulling a dozen 5-6 healthy inchers out and all were released. Still cannot figure out why they were there. No shade, no shad, no brush, and mud bottom.
Exploring further down a larger cove, I hit the jackpot. The entrance of the cove is deceiving. As I entered, no fish was spotted on the 2d sonar nor side imaging. After 200ft in, the cove curved a hard left and bottlenecked then opened up again. Tons and tons of shads were jumping everywhere. Not in waves like how you would see them jump in the main body of the lake when being chased by large predators. You could tell they were being chased as some would jump crazily onto the muddy shore and wiggle back into the water. It’s just not normal and I knew then that I was in a special place, a place we all dream to be. I slow trolled quietly into the cove with two jig poles in each hand. Tick, tick, THUMP! The left pole was game on! Then thump, thump, the right pole went too. This was getting out of control. I managed to get both fish out and both were thick black crappies, a 14” and a 15”. After a little scoping around, I pinned point their hiding place in some light grassy weed sticking out of the water. The depth in the those weeds was only 4ft deep at most and they all were suspended 2 ft below right before the water clarity gets brown. They were down there ambushing shads. From 10am-11am, I used a light CrappieMax rod and pitched jigs to them. I must have caught and released over 100 black crappies and kept 22 over 9” for a family fish fry this coming Sunday. (see photo)
The day was fun and I would have never imagined finding crappies in a cove like this. I had time to return to the truck for a nice lunch and bass fish for another hour before leaving. I just have one complaint about this lake and that is that I believe the crappies are stunt. At least the last year and this year generation are going to have a difficult time growing due to the drought and drainage of reservoirs in the coming summer. After all, reservoirs are designed for human usage and not fish growing.
Have a CRAPPIE summer Yall!

Scouts out, welcome to Cali. I live in NorCal and fish mostly up here. I am no expert but from personal experiences, most lakes will have black crappies. A boat, decent fish finder, and little effort in locating schools and you should have a nice slab dinner. Due to the unpopularity and low to no demand, DFG puts no effort in growing crappies out here. The good thing is that there is barely any other crappie fisherman on the lake, so you pretty much have the lake to yourself. Spring spawn brings out few annual minnow anglers but nothing compared to the Midwest. Good luck.