Open Invite - Berryessa 5/14/22

First time posting up an invite, so please forgive any funky formatting or broken rules.

I'm going to Berryessa this coming Saturday, May 14. Figuring to launch from the long ramp at Oak Shores Day Use, arriving at 7:30 am when they open the gates. Planning on targeting trout and kokanee.

Look for a white Honda Ridgeline (goofy looking 1st gen) and a green/black/camo Wilderness Systems Tarpon 140, I'll have an orange NRS Chinook PFD.

Alrighty, essentials out of the way now I'll start rambling! This is going to be a day of firsts for me, I've never launched from Oak Shores, never targeted kokanee and sadly never had much success trolling for trout. What I have done is read a bunch of posts on, divers, thermocline and Berryessa as well as spent far too much time watching youtubers make kokanee fishing look far far too easy. I'll be going out with some dipsy divers, dodgers and a bunch of hand tied hoochies that are probably a little too big. Tack on a handful of minnow lures, some gulp wax worms and a couple spinners and I should have far more options than I can reasonably use in a single day.
It should be an adventure, one that I'm happy to be making after all that time spent online thinking about fishing. So if you do decide to come out and fish, know that I'm going out with low expectations but high hopes.
Of course if anyone is reading this and sees any red flags or has advice to offer I'd love to hear it. Otherwise I figure I'll just go out and see what a bit of experience in the boat can teach me.

Good luck.  Haven't been this year as the reports have been slow.  Don't forget the "shoepeg" corn. 

Good luck man and hope you find them 

I don’t have any recent intel for you, but in the past that area has been a good launch and fishing along the East side of the big island has been a good area. I like pink wiggle hoochies for berryessa Kokanee and boring old rapalas for trout.

Thanks for the well wishes! Maybe between good luck from you guys + beginners luck I'll catch something.

@ThreemoneyJ, thanks for the intel! East side of the big island sounds like a good place to head towards towing that boring old rapala and a kastmaster.

Reporting back!

The day was beautiful, Berryessa is a zoo on the weekend, the water was in the high 60's and I managed to catch two rainbows on opposite ends of the day.

Oak Shores is a neat little area to launch out of, I appreciate the electric kiosk since I so rarely carry cash anymore. What I had assumed via google maps to be a ramp was more of a walk way, but it was easy enough to find a shallow beach to launch from. My PVC kayak cart has been holding it's own.

I need to spend a bit more time learning what are good settings for my fish finder, as I think I had the gain far too high to be useful.

Paddling and trolling is it's own adventure, but I do think I'm figuring out a workable approach. When using a diver or a weight I'll just loosen my drag until it can start taking line in a controlled manner while I paddle. One rod I've been running a clip on line counter, the other I just tied brightly colored braid onto the main line as markers at 50ft, 75ft and 100ft. Between that and my laminated trolling cheat sheet I can have a rough idea of where things are.

First rainbow came at 9am (ish) on a green kokabow dodger and pink hoochie, roughly 10 or 15ft down and south of the big island. Obviously I then left fish to continue exploring the east side of the big island and didn't catch anything else until the very end of the day.

Wake boaters, speedy bass boats and parasail boats definitely made for an exciting paddle. I swear one of those parasailers was so high that an airplane had to change course to avoid it.

Eventually I figured it was time to head home, so I pulled my lines out of the water and made my way back to the place I had launched. About 100ft from shore I was hit with the desire to have one last cast, so I made my way to an uninhabited point (the parking lot had filled up and the day use area was super busy by now) and started casting into a fishy looking area. The wind had picked up slightly and I think this helped. Casting around a little pins minnow I figured I might be able to hook a bass for some last minute excitement, so imagine my surprise when I got a bite and it turned out to be an 18" rainbow.

I had a good time and am feeling a bit more confident figuring out where to look for fish in lakes. Trolling too, is starting to make a bit more sense to me and I hope to get out and keep trying soon. I think maybe Folsom next, since it's so close to home.

Photo time -

Look at all these "fish"


my favorite craigslist find to date.


faux baitfish that did the trick.


9am front and 4pm back

Thnx. for the report and pics 

Congrats and thanks for the report back.

Glad you got some fish! How far out of the water was the “ramp”? I haven’t been to berryessa yet this year, but usually walk down the ramp and then to whichever beach is closest. It’s nice when the ramp hits the water.

And I agree that you may need to mess with the settings on your fishfinder, you have a lot going on in your screen!

I've yet to make a trip to Berryessa, and your report makes me want to give it a try.

This is roughly the route I took, showing the "ramp" and where the waterline actually was (estimated anyway).


As far as I could tell the ramp also puts in to a roped off swimming area? I didn't investigate too closely since it was very busy by the time I got back.

@NowhereMan I'll definitely be going out there again, it's such a big lake that there's a lot to explore and figure out. I'm curious to try launching out of Markley next time and get into some deeper water right near the dam.