striper best at lower lake havasu springs 5lbs and 6lbs...more

Well don't rely on the coast guard to stop many people considering that's gonna be a once a year thing.. Just gotta put some big buoys in between the boat and dock.. I agree it would be nice for everyone to uphold that law but dont rely on it.. Most of the folks that live out there are on full throttle as they pass the houses as well.....more

Really glad to hear about that 5 mph being enforced. Too many expensive boats take a pounding out Milton Rd.. What gets me too is how close some of the boats are to the docks as they fly by. I've also caught some trolling lines from different docks out there. Hopefully after they apologised they got a clue.

Sorry to hear about your family. Too bad those gunmen don't see things the way you do. Hopefully no one was hurt....more

sitting here on my dock on the Napa river, 10:00 PM, coast guard pulls over 2 guys in a boat for not going 5 MPH and runs them thru the whole 9 yards, license, reg, booze ? life jackets etc !! wow ! they could make a fortune writing cites for not going 5 MPH, no one does, oh well, glad it wasn't me , on a side note both of my step sons were just robbed at gunpoint in Vallejo at a taco truck ! NICE !!!! sell the gun , buy a fishing pole and you can feed yourself and your family without anyone getting killed, just a thought, ...more

I am thinking about hiking the Sespe out of Ojai in July, but want to make sure I can catch some fish along the way too. Are there any current reports? I've never been there....more

@Byron

I had many of the same problems when I first started fishing live bait in the Napa River. After some good feedback from these forums, I started lip hooking my mudsuckers and cutting that small sucker-fin off the bottom of them. While it sounds trivial, it seemed to help me snag less.

Drifting your bait under a balloon / bobber will do the trick too, but its near impossible to keep it in a good location unless your in a boat.

On a side note, I fished the back side of Conn yesterday from a small boat. We hooked up with 4 bass in just over an hours time. They were hitting on sinkos, and were fairly aggressive with the bites...not the typical tap-tap pull....more of a tug as the sinko was going down. I think we might have been on some spawn beds....more

Okay. Need a little advice from the old timers/those with more experience than myself.

I have never been a super-comitted baitfisherman. Even when that was all I did. So I never dug into advanced techniques. Striper fishing for me was always wad a bunch of crawlers or a big hunk of chovie on a hook and reel in schoolies all day while I drink beer.

However, since its striper time again, I wanna try fooling a big one on live bait. But I have this problem. Every time I catch and then fish a live mudsucker, I let it sit for a few minutes, then reel up/jerk the rod to get the fish moving again, and it's snagged. When I fish live mudsuckers, they consistently swim me under a rock and snag me. How do I go about avoiding this? Fish in sections of the river with less bottom structure? Drift my mudsuckers suspended off the bottom? Help.......more

Not really a report, but hey....

Did a little rockhopping on Soda Creek before work today. The lower reach directly above and below the store looked pretty well dry, and I hope this years batch of steelies made it up in time to do their business and get back out to the ocean.

It certainly looks like they did. I saw very nice numbers of fry and even a couple alevins that must have come from some extra late spawners. Lots of fish rearing, every pool, run, and riffle is stacked with fry that scatter at the slightest shadow. All the animals were out, saw a few different bird species, frogs and tadpoles in every slow stretch, a few lizards, and even a snake that darted away up a drain pipe before I could get a good look. Lots of water dancers skating and clouds of nymphs on the bottom. One tailout had a thicker cloud of mayfly nymphs than I've ever seen up close before.

Water was low and gin clear. I'd never walked that particular creek before, and I gotta say I was impressed with the lack of silt and the quality of the streambed substrate. Soda Creek has to be one of the better spawning streams in the watershed. If only more of our creeks/main river channel looked like that.......more

started fishing today at 6am and hooked up with a 32inch striper , I use a live splity ! I was fishing by downtown ..

Thank you Stoney of ( napariverfishing.webs.com) for the tips and the live splity !!

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Fished the bank next to the towers from 7pm-8:30pm landed one 18" stripe then back she went. Off pile worms... Left the lighter... Boo......more