Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3619 September 1-15, 2017 | Page 9
VOL.36 • ISS. 19
Sept. 1-15, 2017
7
NorCal Trout Anglers Challenge Tournament Of
Champions To Take Place At Collins Lake Nov 4 & 5!
W
hile many folks think of Collins
Lake as a spring trout fishing
destination, the impoundment also offers
outstanding action during the fall months.
When the Northern California Trout An-
glers Challenge Tournament of Champions
is held at Collins Lake on November 4
and 5, the trout bite for big holdover
rainbows should be red hot.
There will be a long list of prizes
up for grabs at the Collins Lake
TOC.
To catch a limit of hand-
some fall trout at Collins
Lake, you likely won’t
have to do anything
fancy, basic tactics
should work just fine.
When it comes to
soaking bait off the
bank at Collins, worms
work, but dough bait is
king. PowerBait is the tried and true
standard in color schemes like rainbow,
chartreuse and orange, yet other dough
concoctions work too. I’ve enjoyed
excellent results while soaking Zeke’s
Sierra Gold at the lake over the past
couple years.
If sitting and soaking bait isn’t your
style, but you still want to fish off the
bank hiking and casting is the sport
for you. Fall and winter trout tend to
concentrate just under the surface near
the bank, making them a prime target
for bank bound pluggers. When I plug
at Collins, I typically carry a pair of
spinning rods with me.
One is armed with a quarter ounce
blue and chrome Kastmaster. The other is
rigged with a water-filled bobber trailing
a black woolly bugger streamer fly. Some
days they want that flashy Kastmaster.
Other days they
want the fly and
on the best
days they’ll
eat both
with gusto!
Trollers score well at Collins and with a
fleet of comfortable and affordable rental
boats, anyone can troll the lake whether
they own a boat or not.
What to pull? I’ve literally spent hun-
dreds of hours trolling Collins Lake over
the past decade and I’ve caught hundreds
of trout on dozens of different offerings.
I think that any standard trout trolling
offering will take some trout some of the
time at Collins, but based on my experi-
ence there are a pair of offerings that will
hook trout almost all of the time. These
are the Kastmaster and minnow plugs like
Yo-Zuris and Rapalas- Cal Kellogg.
NorCal’s Trophy Trout
And Bass Fishery!
TROUT • BASS • CRAPPIE • BLUEGILL
AND CATFISHING AT ITS FINEST!
Book Early For The NorCal Trout Anglers Challenge
“Tournament of Champions” on Nov. 4-5,
5-6, 2017
2016
• Boat Rentals
• General Store
• Cabins, Campsites &
Lakefront RV Hookups
• TROPHY SIZED
TROUT PLANTED
EVERY FALL!
Incredible Fishing and
800-286-0576 1st Class Accommodations.
www.collinslake.com
Open All Year Long!
Call for Reservations
7530 Collins Lake Road, Browns Valley, CA 95918