The Smallmouth Bass bite is starting to pick up at Lake Del Valle despite the recent heat waves!  Tuesday was a nice break in the hot weather with temperatures below normal with a nice marine cloud cover until mid morning with cooling breezes.   I targeted Smallmouth Bass while trolling the east and west shorelines and surprisingly landed and safely released five nice Smallies and a Bluegill.  The Smallies ranged from 1 pound to 1.9 pounds.  (Note the largest Smallie in photo below).   The fish were caught along the eastern rock wall entering Herron Bay and along the western shoreline south of the dam.  With the very warm surface temperatures running 78’ to almost 80’ the fish were down 20’-25’ from the surface in the 30’ - 40’ water column.   The 1/4 ounce Roxstar spinner with gold blade and brown feathers was the most successful lure used.   Lead core line with a 30’ fluorocarbon line leader was used to get the spinners down to the desired depth.   The bite started around 8;00 am and died out by 11:30am.    In the early hours I saw several striper boils, Lightning Trout feeding at the surface, and a few large fish breaching around submerged trees and logs along the shoreline which was a very encouraging sign.