April 3^rd, 2010 – Kelsey Report - daytime conditions High 54 degrees, blustery Northwest winds to 15 mph, water temp 58 degrees.  Twenty plus members of the Delta Fly Fishers braved a very cold and windy day to fish Kelsey for their annual outing.   They actually looked more like steelhead fisherman than bass fishermen.  The Club members did not post big catch numbers but surprisingly most anglers caught some bass on poppers and hair bugs. 

April 16^th, 2010 - Kelsey Report - Six of us fished Kelsey last Friday.  We could not get the fish to come up for poppers, so we went sub surface.  We tried several different flies, but a black or green wooley bugger fished slow seemed to get the most action.  Our high rod took 25, two of us took 15, one caught 13, my wife caught 6, and our lone hardware chucker took 1.  No big fish were caught; our bass averaged two to fours pounds.  Still fun on a fly rod.  We fished from about 8:00am until 6:30 pm.  Mike
April 23^rd, 2010 - Kelsey Report - 8AM to 5PM.  Great weather - air temps in the high 60's, clear except for a few clouds, and just a very slight breeze the entire day.  Action was slow in the AM using clousers and buggers but picked up when I switched to damsel/dragon nymphs.  Surface water temp was about 62 in a sheltered bay and later in the PM about 65.  The dragonflies came out about noon and the bass came alive looking for hovering damsels.  Oddly, nothing on surface lures (even adult dragon patterns) but bass consistently took damsel/dragon nymphs.  I mentioned this before but anglers really need to fish barbless nymphs and have forceps handy as fish generally hook themselves deep when taking the nymphs.  Also, I'm not sure if spawning is over but anglers may want to avoid wading in favor of float tubes, etc. in the near future as I had a bass bump my leg pretty hard--I suppose I was near the bed (sorry-the bottom of this area was covered with algae so I couldn't distinguish the beds but I'll be tubing in the future).  Action slowed dramatically as soon as the dragonflies disappeared about 2:30 but I was still able to pick up fish.  All in all, a very nice day - weather perfect, little wind, and fish cooperating. I probably landed 25 to 30 fish.  Hopefully top water action will happen soon if the weather stays warm. Dwight

April 26^th  & 27^th , 2010  Kelsey Report - The fishing was excellent both days. It did take our group some time to unlock the puzzle (the hatch). Our group averaged 10 to 20 fish per angler, some of them being really good fish. A few anglers had some really big numbers.  The best flies were a damsel with monofilament eyes no wait and stripped very slowly. Another good choice was a woolly bugger with some of the fibers shortened somewhere between a woolly worm and a woolly burger. These flies were fished best strictly on the fall or very slow retrieve. Another excellent choice was a small baitfish pattern that would resemble a baby bass under an inch in size.  I recommend a small ALF  pattern to resemble a baby Bass primary feathers marabou.

Dean Shubert and Ron VanderHeiden

May 3^rd  , 2010 - Kelsey Report - The fishing was quite a bit slower and the numbers were nowhere near the 26th and 27th of April.  The lake seems to always have a way of rewarding anglers in that almost all fish world really nice size and quality, not to mention some of the strongest fighting bass I've had the pleasure to hook up with this year.   I have never seen so many massive clouds of baby bass some stretching and 5 feet wide and 10 feet long so thick you could not see through them. Might make some exciting fishing in the weeks to come as the bass key in to this bait fish smorgasbord. The flies were small baitfish patterns that might resemble a baby bass and a damsel flies size 10 and 12.  The big reward was the evening; The Bass were hitting on top at a tremendous rate.  I've never been a proponent for making large popping sounds with any of my poppers. I normally let them sit or pop them ever so slightly. Some of my friends think I have mastered top water because of how I fish my poppers. I must confess I've allow them to believe what they see in that I ever so slightly quiver my popper. If truth be told I try not to  move my popper at all but I do like to take up all of the slack in my line.  And then quite honestly I get so excited I start to shake which is normal for me my fly quivers, the bass can't stand it, and they subsequently devour my popper. This quivering technique if that's what we're going to call it was working great on Monday night and the fish didn't stop crushing poppers till after dark.  Ron VanderHeiden  You can view some photos that were taken by Ron's brother Terry at:  www.terrywords.com

May 15^th, 2010 - Kelsey Report -Went to Kelsey Bass Ranch as fish master for DVFF.  I got to the Kelsey Lake boat launch about 7:45 to meet other members. I then drove to the north side of the lake and immediately saw a number of fish swirling and boiling the surface so I elected to wade rather than use my float tube.  From 8:00 until 12:00 I landed 10 fish in the 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 pound range on the Umpqua Swimming Frog. All wading.  I then left to meet the other attendees for lunch. The report from them was they were having quite good success with catches up to 10 fish on both surface and subsurface flies.  Jeffrey Bowman lent me his Sage 7' 11" bass rod for the afternoon. Although that rod takes getting used to after casting on a 9 1/2 eight weight all morning, once you get a good amount of line out it's like a cannon.  I was easily casting 70 feet with a deer hair frog and I'm sure with a some getting used to could cast at least another 10 feet.  It's a great fish fighter also.
I drove to the south end of the lake and launched my float tube.  From about 6:30 to 8:00 I landed four fish of which two were at least 5 pounds. They were caught on an olive dragonfly nymph and later a dragonfly nymph tied for me by Dave McCants that was primarily of a tobacco brown in color. The other fly that worked at that time was a very slim damsel fly nymph. I tried top water for a while at the extreme end without any takes so went back to fishing subsurface.
The conditions were ideal.  The air temperature got to about 80° in the surface water temperature ranged from 75 in the morning to about 79 in the afternoon. There was hardly any wind at all up until about noon.  Later that day the wind came up but was minimal. Lots of baby pass. I caught one with my aquarium net and it was about an inch long.
In summary, in all the years that I have been fishing Kelsey I have never had so many large fish. Every one of the 19 fish I landed, except for one, was in the 3 1/2 to 5 pound plus range. That day there was not much surface activity in the evening and if you have had a good day is no point in staying past five o'clock. It definitely is advantageous to get there as early as possible.  A memorable day.  Thank you Jon Kelsey. William King

May 16^th, 2010 - Shad Report - American River - 5,000 + cfs - Drifted the river and found some shad through the river system. Al
May 27^th, 2010 - Kelsey Report - Hi Al, I just wanted to let you know that my fishing experiences at Kelsey Bass Ranch really prepared me for the recent 2010 Bass N Fly tournament. Specifically, this last trip, I was able to practice various retrieves with different line configurations and could actually see how the bass reacted because of the clarity of the water. I love Kelsey Bass Ranch for the fish, for the value, for the great people you meet there, and for the ease of booking. Thanks again, Rod Buchanan