Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition 3806 Mar 1-15 2019 | Page 27

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Nike Classroom Mc Gr eg or Ge or ge Tr l Sh or e T rai l Detail Area ot b ha Coot Landing Alder ail e Tr Point hor st S e W Road bot Cha e k a L Dogs must be on leash on East Shore Tail and West Shore Tail Turtle Tr l Lake Chabot Regional Park Indian Live Oak Cove Island (Restricted) hab ake C L Mallard Park Residence ad Ro C ke La Lake Chabot Marina Fairmont Ridge Staging Area Restricted Area Half Moon Bay l ills Tr H Ten Boat Rental Lake Chabot Municipal Golf Course Bass Cove ed ict ng str rea assi e R A sp re o T N Marina Cafe & Bait West Shore Trail No Horse Entry on Bridge Walk Kiosk Bicycles Oark Office Puma Low Point Water Landing rail k’s T Huc Honker Bay Family Campground Two Rocks Trl Tr don ak e O Liv Alameda County ail Fishing and Boating; The 315-acre, well-stocked lake is open for fishing and boating throughout the year. The Lake Chabot Marina Cafe offers a well-stocked bait and tackle shop and is open year round (closed Thanksgiving and Christmas). It features a restaurant that serves snacks, breakfast, and lunch. Swimming is not permitted in Lake Chabot. Regulations: Fishing at Lake Chabot requires a current California Fishing License with stamps and an EBRPD Daily Fishing Access Permit for all anglers aged 16 and older. California Fish and Game regulations apply. Fishing licenses and EBRPD permits may be purchased at the Marina Cafe. No live fish may be used as bait. All other legal bait and lures are permitted. Fish may be cleaned only at the cleaning station along the walk near the parking lot. Catch-and-release angling is encouraged for bass, bluegill, and crappie. However, the release of badly hooked game fish and all non-game fish is not allowed. Please bring any unwanted and tagged fish and your completed creel census card (on back of fishing permit) to the Chabot Marina. Rental boats and private craft: Rental boats include row boats, canoes, pedal boats, kayaks, Duffy boats, and boats with electric trolling motors. For more information, call (510) 247-2526. Canoes, kayaks, and scull craft 20 feet and under may be carried in and launched ($2). Inflatables with 3 or more chambers are allowed. Float tubes may be used at Lake Chabot. Persons using float tubes must wear waders or other wetsuit material to prevent body contact with the water in the reservoir. ADA Accessibility: Lake Chabot has several fishing piers that include one with access for the disabled, and there is a wheelchair ramp from the parking lot to the marina. Within the marina area, there are wheelchair accessible restrooms, drinking fountains and picnic tables. The disabled parking spaces are located in the main lot. Hiking, Riding and Bicycle Trails: Lake Chabot offers over 20 miles of hiking trails, which connect to the additional 70 miles of trails in adjoining Anthony Chabot Regional Park. Picnicking: Picnic facilities (tables with barbecue pits) are located adjacent to the parking and marina area. These sites include first-come, first-served sites and 6 reserv- able picnic areas that accommodate 50-200 people each, depending on the site. For information or to make a reser- vation, call all 1-888-EBPARKS. Lake Chabot Marksmanship Range Lake Chabot Facts 25 March 1 - 15, 2019 MAP FEATURE VOL.38 • ISS. 6 To 580 Fishing Notes • Rainbow Trout draw the majority of anglers to Lake Chabot. Both the East Bay Regional Park District and the Department of Fish and Game stock the lake with trout regularly. The plants take place from when the water cools down in the fall until when the water becomes too warm to stock in the late spring or early summer. There is lots of shoreline access at Chabot, so the reservoir is very popular with bank anglers. Shore anglers toss out Berkley Power Bait and other prepared baits, nightcrawlers, salmon eggs, Kastmasters, Cripplures and spinners. Trolling with spoons, Wedding Rings, Uncle Larry's spinners, Rapalas and other minnow imitation lures is also very productive. Trolling nightcrawlers and plastic grubs behind dodgers and flashers is another popular method. • Channel Catfish action is good year round, but the most consistent fishing is found in the summer and early fall. Fish mackerel and chicken livers, with no weight, off the marina, near the island and in Honker Bay. The early morning and evening hours produce the fastest action. Channel catfish plants during the summer and fall regularly replenish the fishery. • Largemouth Bass provide the top action in the spring, though fish are taken all year. Use flukes, swimbaits, plastic worms and crankbaits for the bucketmouths. • Bluegill and Crappie are found around brush and trees. Use red worms and meal worms for the bluegill and Mini Jigs for the crappie. Manager, in their Lake Chabot Fisheries Report 2013-2017. “Because of the sheer numbers of young-of-the-year largemouth bass caught in 2016, we were unable to measure the length and weight of all of them, and used a subsample to show the length frequencies. “The high numbers of juveniles in our survey indicate that spawning has been successful and there is high recruitment into the population. We anticipate this trend to continue, and hope to see the large year-class of fish observed in 2016 in subsequent sampling years. As these largemouth bass grow, they will provide anglers at Lake Chabot an exceptional largemouth bass fishery,” they stated. The bass in the lake are northern strain/ Florida strain hybrids. The park district first stocked Florida-strain largemouth bass in Chabot in 1972. The major forage minnow for the bass is the inland silver- sides while crawdads are also abundant. Whether it’s rainbow trout, channel catfish, largemouth bass, crappie or other panfish, Chabot offers a great urban refuge for anglers to enjoy outdoor scenery while catching some hard-fighting fish. A few sturgeon also lurk in the reservoir. Jon Clark set the lake white sturgeon record when he landed a 45 lb. fish on May 23, 2013 while using PowerBait. After several years of drought that left many docks out of the water, the lake filled again over the past few years with average rainfall in 2016, record rainfall in 2017, average rainfall in 2018 and abundant rainfall to date in 2019. For more information, contact Lake Chabot Marina and Café, 17930 Lake Chabot Road, Castro Valley, CA 94546, (510) 247-2526, http://www.lakech- abotrecreation.com. Lilly Ikemoto of San Francisco bagged this 6.78 lb. whopper-size rainbow while trolling a Super Duper lure over by Indian Cove. Photo courtesy of LAKE CHABOT MARINA & CAFÉ. hooked his monster fish. He then released the lunker back into Chabot. Then an angler broke another lake record in 2017. Francisco Escobar of Castro Valley caught and released a 2.34 lb. crappie at Chabot, a new lake record, on August 16. He landed the fish while fishing a lure near the tules. The bass and crappie population at Chabot has improved in recent years, due to the habitat project conducted from 2003 to 2006 by Jon Walton, the former owner of Walton’s Pond, and the park district in coordination with the Black Bass Action Committee and Alameda County Fish and Game Commission. Volunteers organized by Walton put 250 Christmas trees each year in Chabot to create habitat for largemouth bass, bluegill, crappie and other species. Before they started the project, Chabot was essentially a “big gravel bowl” with little fish habitat. The lake’s bass fishery was characterized by a population of a few big bass that gorged upon each year’s juveniles, since there was little habitat for the smaller fish to find refuge from the larger bucketmouths. “This type of habitat project allows us to build the food chain from the bottom up,” said Walton. “The trees harbor plankton life and attract juvenile fish to use them as fish hotels. As the bass grow, they will use the fish hotels as ambush sites for forage fish.” The catch rates, the size of the bass and the numbers of juvenile and adult bass populations have risen since the habitat project was started, as evidenced by electroshocking surveys conducted by the park district. “The largemouth bass population continues to show good numbers for both juvenile and adult size-classes,” wrote Ed Culver, Fisheries Resource Analyst, and Joe Sullivan, Fisheries Program Freddy Verduzco shows off a gorgeously colored rainbow trout that he landed at Lake Chabot. Photo courtesy of LAKE CHABOT MARINA & CAFÉ.