Remember that clear water is colder. Clear water won't provide good fishing until it warms above 60 degrees.

The best spring fishing will occur in late April when the water is warming but runoff hasn't significantly increased the lake level.

Expect bass to spawn the third week of April. During this time, fishermen can actually see bass building nests on the shallow shoreline. Striped bass will be in the same canyon locations that the bass are in, but they'll be in deeper water just off the edge of the spawning flats.

In those special years when bass spawning happens before the lake rises, fishing success is excellent. If the snow melts early, this event won't happen. Expect the lake to be rising rapidly by the fourth week of April. The runoff will muddy the water all the way to Bullfrog by mid- to late-May. When the northern waters get muddy, fishing for most species is better south from Bullfrog to Padre Bay.

May is the very best month to catch walleye. The warming water increases their metabolism and forces them to feed during the day. Walleye like murky water. Most of the walleye are north of Bullfrog.

Striped bass will be caught halfway between the back of the canyon and the main channel. The lack of abundant shad in the canyon will move stripers toward the detectable current of the main channel in April and May.

Striper fishing success by numbers will certainly be less, maybe much less, than seen in the record-breaking harvest years of 2005 to 2007. It will be challenging to finding moving schools of stripers, but once fishermen locate a school, the fish will be cooperative. They will catch fewer fish, but the condition of the stripers will be dramatically better.

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