Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition 3816 Jul 19- Aug 2 2019 | Page 9

July 19 - Aug 2, 2019 VOL.38 • ISS. 14 7 Catch & Release Fishing! Hook More & Bigger Fish With Flies... Sponsored by Kiene’s Fly Shop 916-483-1222 • www.Kienesflyshop.com Trout Trolling With Flies… You’ve probably heard about trolling with flies, but have you tried it? If not, commit yourself to picking up a few flies and giving the approach a try, because I can tell you from experience that trolling streamer flies will help you catch more and bigger trout throughout the season. I’ve been trolling with flies for two seasons now and I’ve had great results. Certainly, like any other lure or bait, flies are not going to work at every lake in every situation. Yet, I’ve found that they produce with regularity and I’ve used them to tempt several wild rainbows in the 3 to 7-pound class over the past year. The folks at Arctic Fox produce some of the best trolling flies available so let’s start there. If you take an Arctic Fox Trolling Fly and simply draw it through the water there isn’t much action. If you troll it that way the result won’t be very good. You can impart action by teaming the fly with a dodger like you’d do with a hoochie and that works okay, but often I like stay stealthy and leave the blades in the tackle box. Enter the Wigglefin Action Disc. For the uninitiated, Action Discs are round clear plastic discs that you thread onto your leader before attaching your fly. When you draw the Action Disc through the water pressure builds on the cupped front surface of the disc. When the pressure reaches a point of instability the disc turns to release it. This is where chaos enters in and creates erratic action. So, what’s so special about the flies themselves? The color combinations are great, but it’s the Arctic Fox fur itself that really makes the flies shine. Arctic fox fur is very soft and respon- sive in the water, but it retains some stiffness too. It’s soft, but stiffer than marabou quality makes it the perfect material for imitating minnows. It has the somewhat fluid motion that small fish display, but it also has a robotic quality. To my eye, there are very few if any arti- ficial lures that are as good at matching the shape and movement style of baitfish as Arctic Fox Trolling Flies when they are If you aren’t trolling with flies, you teamed with an Action Disc. should give them a try because they will In terms of fly color, the Arctic Fox help you catch more and bigger fish! Photo by CAL KELLOGG, Fish Sniffer Staff. line of freshwater trolling flies checks all FRESHWATER REPORTS: with the double glow mini micro plankton hoochie from Rocky Mountain Tackle and the orange Brad’s Kokanee Cut Plug and CONTINUED FROM PG 4 Hollywood Kokanee Cut Plug,” concluded Crispi. BERRYESSA LAKE cont. “The lake was very murky on my last bass trip to Berryessa,” said Larry “I had two guys out on a guided trip at Hemphill, fishing guide. “I had a wonderful Lake Berryessa,” said Rich Crispi of TW client - fun and a good stick. I guess the Guide Service. “We had some tough love guide is happy to say that when the client in the morning. We lost a lot of nice fish - landed a beautiful 4-1/2 lb. largemouth never even saw them.” early in the trip and follows that with his “We ended up with nine kokanee and first-ever spotted bass at 3 pounds, 5 two rainbow trout; it was a pick-them- ounces.. The client is from big bass Texas, off bite after about 7 a.m. We pulled the so he needed to be impressed.” plug at 1 pm. We couldn’t land that devil “He land his two big ‘uns and I lost my fish. When we took the photo with eight two toads - one a big smallie that I saw kokanee, when we cleared the last rod we for a second or two. I showed him a big had one more kokanee on,” he continued. part of the lake and we fished some of the “We found the fish while trolling down main body. Most of our action was in the at 55 to 60 feet. All fish were caught on narrows, however. The new #980 Senko Rocky Mountain Tackle Dodgers paired continues to work Now Booking Folsom Lake Trout & Salmon! well and produced several bass. So Also Fall Run Kings on the Sacramento River - what does he Custom 23’ Rogue Jet catch his two nice bass on? What else - a morning dawn-chartreuse tail Robo Worm - drop- shotted. The best Cpt. Jerry Lampkin – 25 years of experience fishing five weighed in at Salmon, Steelhead, Stripers, Trout & landlocked Kings on 16 lbs.” the Feather, Sacramento, American Rivers and Folsom Lake “We tried topwater 3813 but only had one T.N.G Motorsports Guide Service (530) 320-0994 • www.tngmotorsports.com blowup. I figured 9550 Micron Ave. Suite B • Sacramento, CA By Cal Kellogg the boxes both in terms of natural match the hatch combinations and bright unnatural reaction strike creating hues. The flies are constructed on high quality, super sharp No. 2 hooks. From what I’ve observed, the trout that strike the flies are often hooked in the cartilage in the corner of the mouth. Once that big hook locks into the trout’s mouth like that, there is very little chance of the trout getting away. That’s awesome since my This quartet of hefty rainbows couldn’t lay off an tui chub pattern Arctic Fox trolling fly. flies seem to be hooking Photo by CAL KELLOGG, Fish Sniffer Staff. bigger than average trout! I think anytime an effective bait pops up on your radar, it’s key to experiment with the bait to figure out how it best fits in with your style of fishing and this is certainly true when it comes to trolling flies. Personally, I’ve just scratched the surface in terms of fly trolling, but I like what I’ve seen so far. I’ve been mostly trolling my flies at 1.5 to 2 mph with the smallest size disc right on the eye of the hook. I’m running the flies on a 48 inch 8 or 10-pound fluorocarbon leader with a quality trolling swivel at the junction between the main line and the leader to prevent line twist. While I’ve pulled flies off my downrigger with success, I prefer to team them with one of my hybrid leadcore rigs for the sake of simplicity. These rigs utilize 20-pound braid for backing, 3 sections of leadcore and a 60 foot 20lb fluorocarbon top shot that terminates at a bead and trolling swivel. The 48-inch leader sporting the fly trails off the trolling swivel. With this rig I can get down to 25 plus feet on the deep end or I can run one color of lead with the fly swimming along at about 5 feet deep about 100 feet back. Get some flies and get after those trout! A great source for flies and information here in the foothills is Willfish Tackle in Auburn, Ca. the cool breeze shut that bite off. I caught a few on Keitech swimbaits. A good early summer pattern worked for us, finding every last east shore tree shadow we could find. Bass were there until shadows were no more,” added Hemphill. The surface water temperature was 80- 83 degrees. BULLARDS BAR/ ENGLEBRIGHT RESERVOIRS Trollers Nail Feisty Kokes DOBBINS – Bullards Bar remains the best prospect in northern and central California if you’re interested in going home with up to 10 kokanee salmon. “The fishing isn’t wide-open, but the action is good,” said Craig Newton at Willfish Bait and Tackle. “I caught 8 kokanee to 13 inches on a recent solo venture in my boat.” “I landed the fish while trolling with orange hoochies behind dodgers. I also lost a lot of fish, including 3 in just one spot. I found the best action while trolling off the backside of Garden Point near the houseboats,” he stated. Newton found the best fishing at 35 to 45 feet deep. “The fish are still scattered. Most of them are in the 11 to 12 inch range,” he said. Boaters can hook some wild rainbows while trolling nightcrawlers behind dodgers in the river and creek mouths, but Newton said almost all trollers are concentrating on kokanee now. “The fishing was awesome on Bullards today,” said Rob Reimers of Rustic Rob’s Guide Service after his latest fishing adventure. “We ended up with easy limits for my clients on the Brad’s Kokanee Cut Plug in the Gold Diver Down color. A half a dozen of the fish were 10 to 11 inches, while the rest were in the 13 to 14 inch range.” Bullards Bar is holding 953,432 acre feet of water, 99 percent of capacity and 114 percent of average. Engelbright Reservoir is holding 71,012 acre feet of water, 101 percent of capacity and 106 percent of average. - Dan Bacher CARSON PASS Anglers Bag Rainbows, Mackinaw and Browns at Bear River and Caples PIONEER – Anglers are battling good numbers of rainbows at Lower Bear River Reservoir while using worms and chartreuse and rainbow PowerBait. Big fish honors go to 11 year old Talon Hunson, who landed five rainbows to 3 CONTINUED ON PG 8