Clear Lake is at almost 3 and a half feet and is coming up slowly but is still about 3 feet lower than it was this time last year. Hopefully we will continue to get this rain and maybe stand a chance to get close to last year's levels.

The fishing for bass has to be rated “decent.”

The results of the Pro Am West Coast Bass tournament that was held this past weekend saw some good bags of fish come in despite the rain and wind that they had to endure.

Fish in this tournament were caught on a variety of baits and techniques and were caught both in shallow water and in deep water. This basically means that the average fisherman can get out and try a number of different things and should have reasonable success.

The weights were down slightly from what they have been in past years but they still would rate as being "good" or better than most of the lakes in the US.

The tournament season is definitely here and from now until the middle of June we will have a tournament of some sort on the lake every weekend, and this bodes well for our local economy.

I think that most people do not realize the importance of these tournaments. This week the FLW Stren series starts on Thursday and they will fish through Saturday.

This tournament will draw a 150 boats, two fisherman per boat, 300 people with 99 percent of these people being from out of the area. Most of them arrived here at least two days in advance of the tournament. They stay in the motels, buy gas, buy tackle, eat at the restaurants and shop in the local stores. I would say that the money they spend definitely stays local.

Having fished these tournaments myself for many years, I can personally attest to the money that gets spent. A lot of our local people would probably prefer to have the lake to themselves and not have all these boats on the water. Even as a guide it makes it hard for us to fish around these big tournaments. but in the overall scheme of things, we need these people coming to the lake and Lake County can only benefit from this exposure.

I know there is a lot of different opinions and possible consequences of having all these out-of-area boats frequent our lake. There is always the danger that the quagga mussel might be brought in by a boat coming from infected waters.

It is my opinion and my experience that the majority of these tournament fisherman are much more in tune to doing the right thing by making sure their boats are “clean and dry” and will get their boats inspected before launching. The danger will more likely come from a vacationer or casual boater who is not aware of procedures.

As far as the guiding goes, it looks like bookings are holding up pretty good compared to last year.

The fish that are being caught are healthy and in good shape. I would encourage those who will be catching fish to realize that most of the larger fish are females and at this time of the year they will all have eggs in them and need to be released to spawn so that we can continue to keep this great fishery going.

Bob Myskey owns Bassin' With Bob Guide Service, www.fishclearlake.com, telephone 707-274-0373.

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Written by: Bob Myskey

Published: 03 March 2009