Our day was off to a great start when I ripped a fish on my very first cast while waiting at the boat ramp for John to park my truck. We began to work the shoreline straight out of the boat launch throwing a variety of spinnerbaits, Senkos and Zoom Flukes. I normally find plenty of shallow fish at Kelsey, but things were surprisingly slow as we pounded the banks along the south end of the lake. In our first two hours, we managed a half dozen fish all running 1-1/2 to 3 pounds.

Figuring these fish were definitely not holding in shallow water, I decided to switch gears and target some offshore areas for staging fish. The east shore of Kelsey is characterized by extremely flat banks with several long, shallow points that drop into 6 to 10 feet of water 50 to 100 yards offshore.

As we pulled onto the first point, I made a long cast with my favorite 128 Pointer Minnow over 6 feet of water. A couple sharp pops of the rod tip and the rip bait was immediately hammered by a 3 pounder. Another cast brought the same results and I quickly rigged up a bright chartreuse Rat-L-Trap for John and told him to start fan casting off the end of the point. Two casts later, John was into a fish and it didn't take long for Zane to rig up a Rat-L-Trap and get in on the action. Over the next four hours, we put our offshore pattern to work and put over 20 fish in the boat.

It was about 3:00 pm when we noticed several fish working shallow water, chasing baitfish right up to the edge of the bank. Zane rigged up a pearl white Zoom Fluke and started making long casts into a foot or two of water. It didn't take long before a quality fish erupted on the fluke nearly clearing the water in an attempt to engulf the bait. As the deep rip bite seem to taper off, the shallow bite did nothing but improve. Both John and Zane continued to throw Flukes into shallow water catching several fish on every point we fished. We ended the day with a total of 48 fish up to 4 pounds.

The following day, Saturday, March 23, we made our way to Lake Amador in hopes of finding the same type of action. Water temperature was nearly identical at 59 degrees, so I assumed the fish would be holding close to spawning areas, but still out in fairly deep water. We immediately went to work tossing plastic worms, jigs and rip baits in 10 to 25 feet of water anywhere we could find a steep point next to a spawning flat.

Things started out a little slow, but we did manage to pick up a few fish on jigs and Magic Worms. Unfortunately, the fish were very small, averaging 10 to 12 inches, and definitely not the ones we were looking for.

The sun finally broke through the clouds around 10:00 am. As we were working a main body point at the mouth of Cat Cove. I noticed a small patch of glassy water with a very inviting tule patch and a small tree sticking out of three feet of water. As we drew nearer, a large patch of white bottom could be seen right next to the base of the tree. "That isn't a spawning bed next to that tree," I thought to myself. Sure enough, a 2 to 3 pound fish scooted off the nest when we passed within a few feet.

While the wind was blowing steady out of the south, Amador is full of small coves and creek arms, so finding calm water is rarely a problem. We started running protected banks towards the end of the cove and to my surprise, there were fish spawning on just about every bank we searched. It was amazing to think the fish in two lakes so close together could be in such completely different stages.

This was the first time John and Zane had ever seen spawning fish, so we spent several hours just cruising the shoreline, stopping briefly to catch and release a few small males that were aggressively protecting their nest. This is an incredible sight to see and the one time of year I often enjoy watching fish as much or more than actually catching them. Heck, I didn't even have a rod in my hand half the time we were there.

The water clarity was fantastic with an average of 8 to 10 feet of visibility. No monsters were spotted, but we did find a small stretch of bank in the Mountain Springs Arm that had a few quality fish in the 4 to 6 pound class. One of the big females was holding tight to the nest, but it was extremely difficult to see her under the choppy water. We probably saw close to 100 fish on spawning beds and could have spotted more had it not been for a couple thunder storms that brought intense rain and strong gusts of wind during the afternoon.

We ended the day with about 25 fish, a half dozen or so caught off beds and the rest caught on jigs, brush hogs or drop-shotting 6 inch worms in 10 to 20 feet of water. With the warm temperatures in the forecast next week, there should be more and more fish moving into the shallows. Please remember to practice catch and release whenever possible and especially when the fish are spawning.