The trout bite recently here at New Melones reservoir has been extremely good. Many people are catching limits of trout from both the bank and a boat. Many of the fish being caught at the moment are smaller planters but there is still some big ones out there. For the most part the smaller trout are up near the surface to 30 ft. of water and the larger ones are down about 50-75 ft. Good options from the bank for catching the trout are Spinners, Kastmasters, Rattletraps, Worms or Powerbait. From a boat some good lures to use are Speedy Shiners, Kastmasters, Flatfish, Apex lures or Hoochies.

 

The bass bite recently has dropped off some on the main lake but the creek arms and cuts have begun to get better. It is also the time of the year to start throwing around big swimbaits and hunting for those big fish. Many of the larger bass in the lake are feeding on planter sized trout because there is so many of them which the Huddleston and Hawg Hunter swimbaits imitate very well. Some good lure options for catching more bass rather than really big ones are jigs, spoons, rattletraps and dropshots. Imitating the shad from 10-35 ft. of water is one of the best things to do at this time of the year because that is the main forage and they are starting to die off which makes it easier for the bass to feed.

Catfish this time of the year are a little harder to catch but when you do catch them they are very fat, the catfish tend to be a little bit deeper in the winter time but they are feeding on the dead shad on the bottom that are being killed by other predator fish or dieing due to the cold temperatures. A good way to catch them would to be to go into a cove in about 60 ft. of water and fish with some cut bait.

The crappie bite is still in the in between stage. It is not quite cold enough for the crappie to start schooling up and getting active but they can still be caught with minnows, dropshots, spoons and crappie jigs. The best bet would be to jig up next to trees in a creek arm that has plenty of bait. It seems that the majority of the crappie are sitting between 35-60ft suspended against structure.