Launch: Granite Bay, Folsom, CA
Water temp: 74-77
Water visibility: 10-20 feet
Wind: 10mph
Air temp: 60-75

I took a random trip out to Folsom Lake this morning. I got on the water at 6:30 and fished until noon. I launched out of Granite Bay and the first thing I noticed was how much cooler it was compared to the last few weeks.

I started fishing a few creek arms off the main body. I decided to run bank and fished in 0-10′ in depth. I threw topwater baits for the first 45 minutes and tried walking baits, buzz baits and poppers with no luck. I noticed a few fish breaking the surface in the middle of the creek channel, but the topwater action was slow. After seeing a few more fish break the surface in the middle of the creek, I decided to fish a little bit deeper and slower. I put the topwater rods away and picked up a Neko rig. I started to graph a lot of bait and fish in 15-20 feet. Almost immediately I started to catch fish. Switching from the Neko rig to Drop Shot, the bite stayed consistent in the creeks for about an hour.

Once the bite slowed down, I went and fished a submerged island. Just like in the creeks, the fish were in deeper water. Most of the fish I caught were in 20′ water off the sides of the islands. Still throwing the Neko rig and dropshot the bite stayed pretty decent for another hour. I found that Morning Dawn was the color that got bit the most. Every fish caught up to this point was a largemouth which was surprising.

During the last hour, I ran to the dam and found a huge school of fish that were suspended. With the wind blowing I tried throwing a rip bait and a spinner bait, but they were not wanting any part of it. So once again I picked up the trusty dropshot. I let the bait hit the bottom, then i reeled it up to where they were suspended and caught a few more. I even got a decent smallmouth this way.

All in all, it was a pretty good day of fishing! The fish are there to be caught, even with cooler weather, that’s for sure.