kayak

Kayak: Top Baits at Clear Lake, California

Clear Lake in California is well known for its big bass, and the 2026 Newport Bassmaster Kayak Series held an event there on June 6th and 7th with 76 anglers competing for AOY points and a possible berth in the championship to be held later this fall. A wide variety of baits were utilized, and the anglers below give us some insight into how they were successful using them on this epic fishery.

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Marty Hughes
Matthew Brannon of California put up a nice score of 207.75 inches, including 108.5” on day two, to take the title at Clear Lake. He used a 19 mm Hag’s Prickly Pear in Hag’s Pumpkin on both of his setups. They were rigged on Size 2 Ryugi Quad hooks with 1/10th oz ZMan Neko ShroomZ weights. He fished both rods with 22 lb Sunline Almight Braid and a short section of 15 lb Seaguar Tatsu leader. Brannon’s Shimano 2500 CI4 reels were paired with a Dobyns DC733SF medium-fast action rod and a St. Croix PS70MF medium-fast action rod.
Brannon shows us his tackle and gear combined with the Hag’s Prickly Pear that helped him win the Clear Lake Kayak Bassmaster event.
A close-up view of Brannon’s Hag’s Prickly Pear, rigged with a Size 2 Ryugi Quad hooks with 1/10th oz ZMan Neko ShroomZ weights.
Simon Her of California broke the century mark with his five bass on Day 1 and finished out with an impressive 197.5 inches in the two-day Clear Lake event. His second-place finish was accomplished using an unnamed 19 mm urchin-style bait with a WOO! Tungsten 1/16 oz nail weight.
In both days of competition Her targeted suspended fish under docks and alongside weed beds ranged from 7 to 20 feet in depth. Her mentioned, “I didn’t catch a ton of fish doing this, but I caught the right ones to seal second place!” Her’s setup included a Dobyns 721 (Light fast action) rod paired with a Shimano Sustain 2500HG spooled with 10 lb P-Line X-Braid and a 15 lb P-Line Shinsei fluorocarbon leader.
Brandon Hua of Oregon finished in third place with 193 inches, garnering one of the coveted “Blue Trophies” kayak anglers dream of winning. Targeting staging big post-spawn females getting ready to move offshore from their main spawning areas was a huge key for Hua in this tournament. Hua mentioned, “I mostly targeted a secondary point outside of a creek and a main lake point as well.” Hua went on to say, “I put together a small limit with a Texas-rigged ZMan Gremlin at a different launch. Then I decided to switch to a different ramp, looking for a bigger bite.”
Hua’s electronics went dead by 10 A.M. due to his charger failing to operate the night before. This changed his game plan, and he just went fishing the “old school” way, “like the good ‘ol days,” Hua said. He threw his confidence bait, which is the ZMan SMH WormZ in purple rain, and caught his three biggest bass of the day with it. Hua mentioned, “On the tip of the tullies in six to eight feet of water, I hooked up with a 21.5-inch bass to fire things off. With less than 40 minutes left, I made the run to the main lake point.” Within a few casts, Hua caught a 19” bass. He continued to pick apart that main point and, with five minutes left, received the biggest bite he had been pursuing. It was a 22-inch beast to help him jump up to third place.
On Day 2, Hua dedicated his whole day to one launch where he previously received his biggest bites. The bite here had completely changed from Day 1, and the fish seemed to want something different to trigger the bite. This area had received a lot of pressure from Hua and other anglers in the tournament. This resulted in an urchin-style bait coming into play, and he went to work utilizing his Lowrance Active Target 2 XL with his Sniper Marine kayak pole. Hua was able to target specific structures that the bigger largemouth were relating to, including a stump, brushpile, and patches of vegetation. Changing colors throughout the day and showing the bass something different made a huge difference for Hua as he rotated between four different areas. By noon, he had about 91.5 inches and knew the last hour was when the bigger fish would set up on a patch of grass. With 22 minutes left, Hua tricked one to eat, and it was his biggest bass of the tournament at 22.5 inches.
Aaron Hart of California fished a variety of Texas-rigged creature baits and a topwater frog to finish in fourth place with 182.25 inches. His creature baits included a Magnum Baits Punch Beef, Missile Baits D Bomb, and a Beast Coast Fishing Flippin Delight.  For topwater bites, Hart used the Snagproof Zoo Kick.
Hart’s topwater frog was a Snagproof Zoo Kick.
Magnum Baits Punch Beef.
Missile Baits D Bomb
Beast Coast Fishing Flippin Delight.
Caymen Rasmussen of Utah finished in fifth place with 181.5 inches using a Texas-rigged Reaction Innovations black and blue Sweet Beaver and a 1/2 oz weight. The purple color also worked well for Rasmussen. His fish were sitting in bushes or grass mats. Rasmussen mentioned, “I had to put my bait in the thick stuff to get bites.” He would cast around all the cover but not get bites. He had to have the bait scrape the bush limbs or punch through the thickest part of the mat to get bites. One area produced most of Rasmussen’s bites, but he didn’t really know when and where they would be setting up from day to day. Each da,y he caught them at different times and stayed in the area until the bass decided to move in and eat. Rasmussen also mentioned that there was a little bit of a shad spawn first thing in the morning on Day 2 that he capitalized on with a quick limit.
1/2oz Texas Rigged Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver, in black & blue or purple colors. 
Solwazi Allahof of California finished in 6th place with 181.5” using a couple of key baits. On Day 1, he caught his entire limit with a Snag Proof Zoo Kick in purple burst. His three biggest bites came in the first 30 minutes. Allah was targeting hard cover elements like sea walls and concrete stairs on west-facing banks and tried to stay in the shade as long as possible. He used a Shimano Curado DC with an 8:5.1 ratio to cover water efficiently during the low-light bite window. He spooled his reel with 65 lb P-Line EndurX braid. Allah mentioned, “Because of the windy conditions, a lot of the water I planned to fish was eliminated,d and I ended up sharing water with a good portion of the field.”
On Day 2, Allah started out throwing the frog and had two big blowups that missed his bait. He also had a couple of other swirls, but none were hooked up. Allah said, “After about an hour, I decided to call an audible and make my way to a mid-depth rock pile that I thought would be a good transition area for post-spawn fish that were making their way offshore.” He had caught one fish off that pattern and spot in a prior outing. Allah mentioned, “It was a shot in the dark based on a gut feeling. My shallow bite was fading, and that seemed like the next best place for the fish to go.” Allah set up on the first rock pile in 10-15 feet of water and started cranking his OSP Blitz EX DR in ghost lime chartreuse, catching a solid limit real quick. He caught fish back-to-back periodically. After the size of the bass he caught decreased on that spot, he continued to hop between rock piles in that same depth range and slowly upgraded. Allah went on to say, “Later in the day, the wind blew some stain down into my area, so I switched to the same crank in a more solid white shad pattern with a little chartreuse, and that’s when I caught my biggest fish of the tournament at 21.25 inches. He threw this bait on a 7’6” cranking rod for long casts paired with a Shimano Bantam MGL to burn his crankbait and trigger bites. The reel was spooled with 12 lb FC Sniper Sunline. Allah said, “The 12 lb is the happy medium to get max diving depth and has great abrasion resistance.”
Bailey Eigbrett of New York flew clear across the country to fish the Newport Bassmaster Kayak event on Clear Lake and finished well in a stacked field of anglers. His 173.5 inches was good enough for an eighth-place finish. He crept a ½ oz ZMan Jackhammer on the bottom at a super slow pace, bumping rocks with it. He used both a ½ and ¾ oz Jackhammer on Day 2. He used an unreleased Rapala Crush City bait as a trailer on his Jackhammer. A 7’6” medium-heavy/fast rod was used with a 7.2:1 reel and 17 lb Suffix Advance fluorocarbon line.
Eigbrett used Rapala DT12 and DT16 crankbaits to catch many of his bass.
The ZMan Jackhammer played a key role for Eigbrett as he slowly rolled it along the bottom of the lake. 
During the Bassmaster Kayak Series event on Clear Lake, Andrew Martin of Arizona primarily relied on two presentations: a powershot/BFS-style drop shot setup and a flipping/pitching setup around tullies. He accumulated 170 inches for a Top 10 finish.
Martin’s powershot setup was technically a BFS-style drop shot. He said, “I fish it much faster than a traditional drop shot. I used it to quickly get a limit in the boat and take pressure off early in the day.” On the two tournament days, he had two powershot setups rigged. One was a 7’ medium Kistler Z-Bone paired with a Shimano Aldebaran BFS reel, spooled with 15 lb Seaguar Smackdown Stealth Gray braid to a 12 lb Sunline FC leader. The second was a 7’ medium-heavy Kistler Helium paired with 15 lb Seaguar braid and a 14 lb fluorocarbon leader. Martin went on to say, “That is heavier than I would normally fish this presentation, but with the size and power of Clear Lake fish, I felt the heavier leader was necessary.”
For the powershot, Martin’s main bait was a Morning Dawn Roboworm rigged on an Owner Cover Shot hook with a 3/16 oz tungsten weight. He started both tournament mornings with the goal of getting a fast limit. On Day 1, the powershot produced a limit in under an hour for Martin, which allowed him to settle in and focus on upgrading the rest of the day. On Day 2, he initially started flipping, but after not getting bit during the first hour, Martin switched back to the powershot and was able to grab a quick limit. He said, “That took the pressure off and let me get back to looking for bigger bites.”
Martin mentioned, “My primary pattern and the bite I was most excited about was pitching tules with a creature-style bait.” For that, he used a watermelon Zoom Magnum 8” lizard with the tail dipped in chartreuse. He rigged it with a 3/8 oz Nako tungsten weight and a 4/0 Owner Jungle Flippin’ Hook. Early in practice, Martin mentioned he was using a heavier weight, but noticed the fish responded better when he downsized, and then eventually settled on the 3/8 oz weight.
Martin’s flipping setup was a Dobyns Champion Extreme DX 746C paired with a Daiwa Tatula Elite TW Pitch/Flip reel, spooled with 20 lb Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon. Martin said, “Even though I am right-handed, I use left-handed reels for both flipping and powershot fishing, so I do not have to switch hands after the pitch,h helping to be efficient.”
During practice, Martin found an area with clearer water that was holding quality fish. He went back on Friday before the tournament to check it again. He shook off more bites than he had expected, which helped him validate the plan going into the event. Martin mentioned, “On Day 1, I was protected from a lot of the wind that other competitors had to deal with, and I was able to catch fish throughout the day, finishing the first day in 5th place. On Day 2, I planned to keep the flipping stick in my hand and look for bigger bites, but after a slow start, I went back to the powershot to secure a limit before focusing again on the tule bite.”
Martin ended the event in 9th place. He said, “Clear Lake is an incredible bass fishery. When you catch 16-inch fish that are pushing four pounds, it is obvious why the lake has the reputation it does. It is truly a bass factory, and the quality of fish there makes every bite feel like it could be the one you need.”

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