The only launch ramp is located in the Pozo arm of the lake. The area is 5-mph and the bridge pilings of Huasna road almost always hold fish. a right turn, heading west from the ramp you will find the Wittenberg arm on your right and the main lake to the left. Wittenberg has big underwater flats on each side of the creek channel. Submerged brush is the dominant structure on the flats.
Heading out of the Wittenberg Arm toward the main lake, you will find my favorite places to fish - the main lake points. These points hold big largemouth year round. i have cashed many checks throwing YUM Money Minnows on jig heads on the steep, rocky points of the main lake. Continuing west past the dam, you will find the lopez arm. There are a few small coves where small feeder creeks come into the lake. The shale rock banks hold an abundance of crawdads and bass can be found foraging there in the early morning hours during summer.
Typical seasonal patterns can be found here like on any other lake in Calif. Crankbaits, swimbaits, jigs, dart heads, drop shot rigs and every other technique have their place. Fall on lopez is the typical transition period not unlike what you may experience on your local lake. The crankbait bite is very reliable on lopez lake and a great way to find active bass. once you find where the bass are, you can change up your presentation, if you aren’t getting those bigger bites. i usually go to a jig. either a YUM Gonzo Grub or a Booyah skirted jig with a YUM F2 Wooly Bullee for a trailer. The kicking action of the legs on the Wooly Bullee can be the key to getting those big fish if the Bomber Fat Free Shad only got the smaller fish although that crankbait can and does catch the 5 to 7 pound largemouth that inhabit lopez.
Winter gets real slow with the bass going deep, following the shad to wait out the shorter days. i am a firm believer that the length of daylight hours is a major environmental influence on bass movement. Short days of winter, bass move deep and slow down, knowing that cooler temperatures are a result of the lack of sunlight hours. Then as sunlight hours increase the bass start venturing into the shallows for short feeding periods and as spring arrives a major
Issue 3
June 2012
movement of bass into the shallow areas of the lake to spawn takes place. i’ve seen bass on beds in February as days get longer even when the water is in the mid ‘50s. Water temperature obviously influences spawning activity; but don’t overlook the hours of daylight needed as a trigger to the spawn also. With spring comes some of the predictable movements of the bass. The month of March and into april you will find prespawn bass, spawning bass and post spawn bass. depending on which area of the lake you are fishing you will find yourself fishing for bass in one of these cycles. You may need to adjust your presentation to match the cycle that most of the bass are in. Speaking from experience, my daughter, Kenna and i fished a team tournament in lopez in March of this year. We prefished the weekend before the tournament and found it difficult to get many bites. The few we did get were obviously small buck bass, roaming the shallow areas, looking for a place to make a spawning bed. With this being the case, i told Kenna that we would have to change from reaction baits to slower finesse techniques a little further outside of these shallow, shoreline stretches. We weren’t able to get any good bites during the final hours of that practice day; but i was convinced that the next Saturday would find us concentrating on the outside points leading into the spawning areas.
Tournament day came and we were the last boat to take off. With so many fishermen ahead of us as we headed to the Wittenberg arm hoping to find an open place to start fishing. There was a small cove off the left that only had three boats in it and the inside point was not taken. We started there and worked our way back to the right side of the cove catching a couple two pounders on a Smithwick rattlin rouge ripbait before we met one of the other boats. We pulled up the trolling motor and headed back to our starting point. one of the other boats was fishing the point so we went in behind them and fished the bank out toward the mouth of the cove that they had just fished. Since they were fishing crankbaits, Kenna and i decided to fish our YUM dingers to show the bass something different. By fishing out toward the main
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