Up-To-Date and Published Locally... By Sportsmen... For Sportsmen!

Our 35th Year

MADE IN U. S. A

Since 1982

SEE OUR NEW BAJA ROUNDUP SECTION ON PAGE 28

own Cal Kellogg, we hooked a very large fish which unfortunately turned out to be a sturgeon. While Cal may have thought he had the striper of the lifetime on the end of his rod, in the end it was something totally unexpected.

A similar scenario unfolded several times during the recent Kokanee Power Lake Pardee Team Kokanee Derby on June third. As my family and I targeted kokanee on a warm Saturday morning, my downrigger rod got slammed. I battled the hard-fighting, head-shaking fish, thinking that I may have a really nice kokanee to add to our weight total.

As my wife Gina swung the net into position, I could see a rosy stripe down the side of the fish. At that point, I knew it wasn’ t a kokanee, but instead a rainbow trout! It was not the targeted species, but a nice fish for the cooler none the less.

Bryan Roccucci of Big Daddy’ s Guide Service has been putting his clients on some fantastic Almanor trout this June. This impressive brown was fooled with a threaded worm on June 20. Photo courtesy of BIG DADDY’ S GUIDE SERVICE,

Quincy.

Catching trout while targeting kokanee is not too uncommon, but Lake Pardee still had a few surprises up its sleeve. Later that morning, we ended up landing a third, more unexpected species of fish.

This year, my derby experience began on Friday, June second, which was the day before the derby. I hadn’ t fished Pardee much this year, and decided that some pre-fishing to scout out my usual locations were in order. On Friday, I was fishing with Kirby Desha and his daughter Raina.

We had a great day on the water, landing fifteen kokanee and losing fifteen fish by 2:00 pm. The scouting paid off, and I discovered that most of the fish were in the south half of the main lake. We had managed to catch two kokanee over fifteen inches long, and I could only hope to duplicate those kind of results the next day when it counted.

On derby day, the team of my wife and I arrived with our two children Grace and Adam, who would be competing in the

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and nasty chop, but now Larry was hooked up and from all indications he was into something big. The fish wasn’ t running or headshaking and truth be told it probably didn’ t realize that it was even hooked.

The trout simply swam slowly back and forth, some 200 feet behind the boat. Larry’ s downrigger rod was bent sharply against the unseen bulk and despite the fact that he turned the reel smoothly and methodically no line was being gained or lost.

It was several minutes into the“ fight”, when the fish came to life. Our captain, Bryan Roccucci had gone into the boat’ s canvas cabin to grab something and Larry was looking down at his reel when the fish bolted,

Stampede Lake Map Feature

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Grace Naves shows off what turned out to be the Youth Division’ s 3rd place kokanee during the Kokanee Power Derby at Lake Pardee.

Photo by JACK NAVES, Fish Sniffer Staff.

but since I was shooting video I saw everything.

The fish dug in hard with its tail and ran out to the port side in a crescent shaped blitz that ended in a wild jump.

The fish looked bright yellow and massive against the slate grey water and I felt an instant surge of adrenaline.

“ Whatever you do Larry don’ t pump the rod or mess with the drag. Just reel. That’ s a really big fish and it’ s got a lot of fight left in it,” I exclaimed.

Instantly Bryan was back on deck and he asked,“ How big Cal four or five pounds? Bigger? Rainbow? Brown?”

“ It’ s big, at least 5 pounds and honestly it looked like a big yellow carp. That got a laugh from everyone including Larry, but I continued,“ It’ s got to be a brown.”

Larry hadn’ t done much downrigger trolling for trout, but he knew how to handle a fishing rod. He stayed patient

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Delta Stewardship Council Approves Amendments Promoting Delta Tunnels

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FRESHWATER REPORTS Lake Almanor- Lake Berryessa............................ 4 Bullards Bar / Englebright Lakes- Davis / Frenchmans Lakes...................................................... 8-9 Del Valle Reservoir- Feather River................ 10-11 Folsom Lake- Lake Oroville.......................... 12-13 Lake Pardee- Southern Oregon Roundup.... 14-15 Tahoe / Donner Lakes- Wild Horse Reservoir....... 19

SALTWATER REPORTS Berkeley & Emeryville- Bodega Bay..................... 29 Fisherman’ s Wharf- Shoreline Peninsula...... 30-31

Where... When... How...

BAJA ROUNDUP.................................................... 28 BULLETIN BOARD................................................... 4 COOKIN’ YER CATCH- Paulette Kenyon............... 12 FISH SNIFFER HOW-TO: Cal Kellogg..................... 7 GO FOR IT: Staff....................................................... 5 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR...................................... 3 MAP FEATURE: Dan Bacher............................. 16-17 RV LIVING- CLIFF WOOLARD................................ 2 SALMON JOURNAL..................... 18,20-24,26-27 SALTY TIPS Steve“ Hippo” Lau.............................. 29 SPOTLIGHT ON CONSERVATION- Dan Bacher.. 25 WHAT’ S HOT SALTWATER- Cal Kellogg.............. 31

Cal Kellogg- Hosted the Annual Couple’ s Challenge aboard the California Dawn. For light tackle live bait drifting, Cal used a Fenwick 7’ 5” Aetos casting rod paired with an Abu Garcia Orra Inshore baitcaster with a 7.1:1 gear ratio. The reel was spooled with 30 lb FINS braid. Cal caught several halibut on the combo, but none of them were keepers.

Paul Kneeland- fished Pyramid Lake, Nevada with Bridget Looney in the Fish Sniffer 21’ Rogue Jet Coastal. They caught Lahontan cutthroat trout to 4-1 / 2 pounds using a using a new Lamiglas Kwik Series 8’ light action Composite trigger stick rigged with an Daiwa ICV15 Accudepth level wind reel loaded with 8 lb test Yozuri Topknot flourocarbon line. They trolled a chartreuse 4 inch Apex and chartreuse / orange dot Silver Horde spoons behind Vance’ s cannonball flashers off the Canon downriggers at 25 to 55 feet deep and 2.4 mph.

Dan Bacher- fished for rainbow trout at Rollins Reservoir. He used a Berkley Ugly Stick GX2 6’ 6” medium action spinning rod, teamed up with a Shakespeare GX235 spinning reel filled with 6 lb. test P-Line CX Premium Flourocarbon Coated Line. He fished with Berkley chartreuse glitter and fluorescent orangee PowerBait on # 14 gold Eagle Claw hooks rigged with 4 lb. test Berkley Trilene 100 % Fluorocarbon leaders on sliding sinker set-ups. He also tossed out 1 / 4 and 1 / 8 oz. Yakima Bait Rooster Tails in Brown Trout, Fire Tiger and Rainbow color patterns.