Summer 2026
time. While our local fisheries appear to be benefiting from a healthy upswing lets hypothesize as to why this may be occurring.
I utilized a combination of limited tournament catch data, publicly available reported contest results from California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) permit reporting, and qualitative observation (both firsthand and observing tournament results and comments from anglers).
Unfortunately, our state resource agencies do not collect robust quantitative data on reservoir fish populations and what information they do collect disappears into the ether and is not published or shared openly. It takes them well over a year just to publish tournament results in a 10- page pre-formatted report.
BIGGER BAGS AND BIGGER BASS
As noted above we have seen significant increases in the weights required in local tournaments to even make a check. We are seeing larger fish overall and heavier fish on average.
Table 1 summarizes the average fish size reported to CDFW for Type A permits at select lakes from 2020-2024 (only data publicly available).
During the 2020 to 2024 period, we observed modest increases in average fish size for these events; however, we are not seeing the last 1.5 years of data when we’ve seen the greatest increases in the field.
Furthermore, the timing, size of event, number of events, etc. can have a significant effect on a central tendency metric like average fish size.
These non-standardized data sets are most effectively used to corroborate other qualitative observations in the absence of appropriately collected quantitative survey data.
What is catching most of our eyes – are the bags required to win recent large tournament events as well as smaller local team and club events.
Table 2 shows the WON BASS Pro-am 3-day event winning weights 2024-2026 for Clear Lake and Shasta.
It was not long ago, a three-day limit of 35- to 45-pounds on Shasta would have been impressive. Just the increase in overall weights is more than what it previously took to win a single day event. And that is incredibly impressive growth and indicative of very prosperous conditions.
Results from other California fisheries, such as Oroville, Trinity, Almanor, and Folsom, are showing comparable
Photo: WON Bass
®
TABLE 1. AVERAGE FISH WEIGHT FOR TYPE “A” TOURNAMENTS REPORTED TO CDFW
BETWEEN 2020 AND 2024.
Water Body
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
Shasta
1.94 1.75 1.66
1.83
2.33
Oroville
1.84 2.15 2.08
1.93
1.80
Clear Lake
2.92 3.3 2.87 3.26
4.07
Delta
2.32 2.79 2.56
2.66
2.88
Water Year Type Dry Critically Dry Wet Above Normal Above Normal
* 2025 data not published. Type A are tournament events with greater than 60 anglers.
TABLE 2. WON BASS PRO-AM 3-DAY EVENT WINNING WEIGHTS 2024-2026.
Water Body
2024
2025
2026
Shasta
47.42
55.37
62.28
Clear Lake
83.28
102.81
95.87
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