I was able to get up to Oroville for 2 events the last 2 weekends. The season closer of Future Pro Tour and The North Valley Tackle Open. The FPT had a 74 boat field and was won with 9.25lbs and the North Valley Open was 9.26lbs with 61 boats. Water temps ranged from 60-62 and weather was overcast to mild rain.

Prefish was our best day of course, we had around 11 lbs by 8:30am. The biggest of that bag was a 3lb largemouth and a couple 2s. FPT we weighed in 9.03 for 4th and 7.11 for 25th at the North Valley Open. The typical Oroville 1- 1.3 lb fish were abundant to say the least. We averaged around 50 fish per day every day we fished. Weeding through them and finding the bigger bites is key as always here where ounces count but we just couldn’t find those key bites on tournament day.

Our main areas of focus were steep bluff walls with any change (ie. Shale to granite, boulders to red clay etc), and points leading into shallower water. Every fish we caught was regurgitating small bait fish so we matched the forage. Most of our bigger fish were caught on an arig and spinner bait earlier in the day and backed up with numbers by finessing with either a shakey head or dopshot with bait imitating plastics. Depth range we focused on was 2-20ft.

It was great to get out there again as we haven’t fished any events in a few months. Oroville is always a fun lake especially when it’s like this and your catching fish ALL day long. Big thanks to Vince and crew at the FPT and Jamey, Dan and Jason at North Valley for putting on these events, and of course Sacramento Black Rifle, Monster Fishing Tackle, RB Bass, Dobyns Rods, River2Sea, Eyesurrender, and Big Bass Dreams. Look forward to seeing you all out there next time Danny Cross