My friend I have fished the lake on a regular basis for over thirty years. It is my favorite trout/ salmon lake. My boat is equipped with a simple Hummingbird locator that I utilize for depth , speed, water temp and marking fish. I have never used a chart map mostly due to my experience on the lake. There are many known structural markers that many us use as a reference point when navigating the lake, ie ranch house on the east side of the main lake, putuh bridge at the northern end of the lake, and the overhead wires denoting the coves to Pleasure Cove and the damn area towards Markey Cove. As far as technical info goes, my most productive lures have been a chrome Speedy shiner along with my old faithful, chrome and blue cast master. I’ve caught more fish on this lure lake then all lures combined! When the lake turns over there have been many times that we have limited out never leaving Pleasure Cove. 2 to 2 and half mph is our trolling speed. One hundred feet back. I’m planning a four day trip up there at the end of this month saying Pleasure Cove. Before you go check with the resort that u will be lunching out of. Many of the ramps are currently out of service due to the low water. Pleasure Cove ramp is only available to 4wd only to launch. Good luck fishing and hope u have a great trip

We booked a few days at Thanksgiving time at Berryessa...this is a confusing big lake with arms and coves over a mile deep. My wife and I have been turned around and confused about where we were in relation to where we were trying to go...

I got a big full sized mylar map that has all the popular coves and hot spots identified. It helps tremendously to be able to see where we were in the arms we got turned around in when we gave up and headed back to what we knew. We also got GPS tracking on new fishfinders so that we could get back the way we went which is a big plus, but I feel like I now know where it is I am when I do the things we did again. Plus the last time I was out my friend and I went to the dam, and out to the main part of the lake which helped better orient me to the lake.

The main key here is that I've been watching guide videos of the fall fishing, they show what lures they are using, how to rig, how far back, speed, etc., but the key piece was often not knowing the area they were fishing even though they would call it by the geographic reference. Now I can see several great places to troll, how fast, and what to switch over to when the fishing slows down in the mid morning. I'm set up to do everything like several guys have shown, and knowing exactly where to go is a huge confidence builder.

Now if we can get the usual nice but cold Thanksgiving weather without rain we're on!

For even more giggles..

During nautical twilight hours try running an all black dodger and lure (all black and 1 or 2 sizes larger than what you would use otherwise). Also run it a little bit slower. (I added a little extra bend to my black dodger to make it work at the slower speed.)



The reason black works so well is that under very low light conditions, the fish can only silhouettes (shades of grey). Black (followed by dark reds) provides the best contact.

If you want to give it a try a but aren't yet ready to get out the spray paint, wrap your dodger and a Krocodile with black electrical tape.

Giggles away!
PapaD

Sounds good. My opinion, like I said before my greatest success over the years at Lake Berryessa has been a silver and blue Kastmaster.regardless of the weather conditions. Overcasted, pouring rain and sunshine. Remember that I am fishing once the lake turns over. The bait is now in the top 10ft and the trout are chasing bait and or searching for food it’s my opinion 4that your lure must Imitate the food source, small bright shad! Nothing in my opinion beats the silver Kastmaster in replicating the shad bait in the lake once it has turned over.