Found a cool little lake over Memorial Day weekend with a pretty decent smallmouth fishery. I needed to find a last minute camping spot for the weekend and according to the state's online reservation system, Lake Clementine had the only sites available in Northern CA.

Clementine is a small 3.5 mile long s-shaped lake just outside of Auburn, in the Auburn State Recreation Area. It's the next lake upstream from Folsom Lake (on the North Fork of the American River) and was created in 1930s as a debris dam. To get there, take I-80 east from Sacramento and take the Foresthill Rd. exit when you get to Auburn. Once you're on Foresthill, signage to the Auburn SRA is easy to follow. When crossing the American River you drive across the highest bridge in CA--it's 730 feet high. Pretty dang nifty. The road to the lake is very steep (and narrow) with a bunch of switchbacks so mind yer brakes and don't let 'em overheat.

As mentioned above, it's a small lake but there's hardly any fishing pressure. There's an abundance of mixed shoreline cover (tules, weedbeds, brush and laydowns from fallen trees) and steep rock walls. Fishing pressure is very light as I only saw two other boats fishing there--most of the boaters were wakeboarders and skiers but the since the lake isn't very big, they only have a small stretch to get squirrely. There were also quite a few kayakers out. The campsites are near the upper end of the lake and are boat-in only. It was a bit crowded with campers since it was the holiday weekend but it could be very nice during a normal or off-season weekend.

I didn't start fishing until late Monday morning, around 8-ish. I only fished a small stretch near the camping area but managed to pull ten fish out in three hours or so. Most were cookie cutter smallies in the 16" range with one largemouth dink thrown into the mix. Got 'em all on 4" T-rigged worms worked along rock banks and laydowns. All of the smallies were nicely colored and had the cool tiger stripes. Beauts, for sure.

Anyway, it's a great little lake that can easily be fished out of a kickboat or tube, and it's not that far from Sacto for them's that live there...

Clementine smallies
http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/2447.jpg

More smallies
http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/2448.jpg

Tiger stripes
http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/2449.jpg

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