Fishing with FLW Pro Anglers Greg Gutierrez and Richard Dobyns on Lake Pardee

Introduction: In what has become an annual tradition Ultimate Bass Radio Host and Pro Angler Kent Brown and the team at Lake Pardee hosted another event which brought together Pros and Outdoor Writers to talk shop and go hunting for both largemouth and smallmouth bass in this Northern California fishery.

Cal and Pro Angler Greg Gutierrez (Double G) head out

There is no doubt that Lake Pardee is home to some seriously big fish and previous events have showcased what this lake has to offer. At this time of year the lake can be an excellent swimbait lake as the bass are gorging themselves on Kokaneee and Rainbows. Weekly plants of 1.5-5lb. Rainbow trout are common here which makes Pardee a popular destination for trout fishermen that regularly troll the main lake and river mouth.

Pro Anglers Bub Tosh and Kent Brown ham it up for the camera

This year Cal and Zander were paired with FLW Pro Anglers which included Greg Gutierrez (Double G), for the morning session, and Richard Dobyns in the afternoon session. As you might have guessed Richard is following in the footsteps of his father, Gary Dobyns, and is also very involved in the rod business which bears the family name.

Cal and Greg fish swimbaits early

At 6am we met Greg at the launch ramp. On this particular morning he had just found out that he was narrowly edged out by Jeff Michels, only a single point separated the two in the Western Everstart Series Angler of the Year. Though this was no doubt a tough pill to swallow Greg showed up to the event wearing his characteristic grin and came ready to fish.

Zander goes finesse...

Greg doesn’t spend a lot of time on Pardee in particular but has attended these events the last few times and has built up some knowledge about the structure and a few spots on the lake. Known for his flipping prowess you would think the first place we would head would be the few areas where tules line the coves but instead Greg stopped at a shallow submerged island where he proceeded to whip out a swimbait.

...and lands a tiny smallie

This approach was just fine with Cal who often employs the “go big or go home” mentality and brought only a single rod to the event, a swimbait stick. Together they made cast over cast hoping to draw in one of those giant Pardee bass. Zander on the other hand was hoping to get the skunk off the boat and tied on a drop shot rig and worked the drop offs.

Greg points out fish hiding near structure

As is often the case finesse fishing produced results first and Zander boated a 10, ten inch Smallie that is. Greg soon did the same boating an equally “impressive” largemouth rat. That was enough to persuade him to make a move and the next stop was the tules and submerged timber. Adjusting quickly Greg tied on a weedless dropshot rig and a variety of flipping rigs and proceeded to pound the structure.

Greg lands another little fish, time to make a move

The bites were few and far between early on but whenever a fish so much as breathed on the lure Greg would stick them quickly. Greg has a very positive outlook on fishing and even as he was contemplating his next cast he would constantly joke around with the guys.

One of Greg's strengths is flipping structure

Greg flips up a few fish

Greg described some of his favorite techniques and at the very top of his list is topwater fishing, thus it was no surprise that he was looking for that swimbait bite early on, and like Zander and Cal one of his fondest fishing memories was of Amazon Peacock bass crushing his topwater prop baits.

Though fishing in the morning was tough Greg was a pleasure to fish with

After a relatively tough morning it was back to the dock to compare notes. The two pros that did the best were local heroes Taylor Parsons and Russ Graves who had both boated some really impressive largemouth on swimbaits. While many anglers reported seeing many beds on the shoreline there were very few with any fish locked on.

Russ Graves shows us two quality fish