Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3704 Feb 2-16, 2018 | Page 18
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Feb 2 - 16, 2018
MAP FEATURE
VOL.37 • ISS. 04
Scenic Sugar Pine Reservoir an array of rainbow trout, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, spotted bass, redear sunfish, bluegill and
channel catfish.
Photo by DAN BACHER, Fish Sniffer Staff.
S
Rainbow Trout, Black Bass
Offer Top Sugar Pine Reservoir Fare
ugar Pine Reservoir, a beautiful
mid-elevation American River
watershed lake located north of Foresthi-
ll, is most renowned for its rainbow trout
fishing, but it also offers sleeper fishing
for smallmouth, largemouth and spotted
bass, channel catfish and sunfish.
While the California Department
of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW)
plants rainbow trout in the
lake in the spring and fall,
browns are exceeding rare in
the catches at Sugar Pine reservoir.
The CDFW last stocked the res-
ervoir with catchable browns
in the 1990s.
Sugar Pine is one of the
favorite lakes for Cal Kel-
logg, Fish Sniffer Editor, to
fish, but he’s never caught
a brown, though he’s
landed lots of rainbows
and some bass.
“I’ve spent hundreds
of hours on this lake,”
said Kellogg. “The biggest
rainbow trout I’ve ever
seen caught here a was 22
inch rainbow that my wife,
Gena, hooked on the sec-
ond ever date with
me 23 years ago,”
our offerings,” said
Kellogg.
“Hey Dan,” Kel-
logg said to me, “this
is Olin, the guy who
caught that brown I
was telling you about.”
I reached out and
shook Olin’s hand, and
quipped, “I’m honored
to meet the lake brown
trout record holder.”
Anyway, we didn’t
get any bites from
rainbows, browns or
other fish, and decided
to leave. The fishing
should definitely get
better soon, because
a mid winter plant of
rainbows was sched-
uled for Sugar Pine the
week of January 21.
For me, Sugar Pine
has been a feast or
famine situation. I’ve
caught easy limits of
rainbow trout while
shore fishing three out
Elyse Gutierrez holds up a scrappy smallmouth bass that she
caught from her kayak at Sugar Pine Reservoir in August, 2017.
of the six times I’ve
Photo courtesy of ELYSE GUTIERRE.
been there, but didn’t
catch anything the other
times. Ironically, one of the slowest
nearby reservoir is Big Lake, a private-
times was when I went to the lake
ly-owned lake and campground.
during a rainstorm the day the lake
The lake is not big by Sierra Neva-
was planted. With trout. However, da standards, with a reservoir capacity
fishing was hot the following
of 6,921 acre-feet with a surface area
day.
of 165 acres. Tahoe National Forest
Sugar Pine is unique for
manages the recreation facilities under
being one of one of two lakes
an agreement with the U.S. Bureau of
in a 150-square mile geograph-
Reclamation.
ical region characterized by rushing
True to its name, sugar pines and
streams in deep canyons filled with
other conifers surround this scenic reser-
wild rainbow and brown trout. The only
voir. The reservoir sits at an elevation of
3620 feet on Shirttail Canyon, a tributary
of the North Fork of the American River.
Rainbow trout like this one displayed by this young
Like many California reservoirs,
angler offer the most popular fishery at Sugar Pine.
Sugar
Pine suffered low water condi-
Photo by DAN BACHER, Fish Sniffer Staff.
said Kellogg as we fished the reservoir
on an unusually warm winter day. “She
caught the fish right off the point that
we’re fishing.”
“The largest – and only brown - I’ve
heard of was a 5 pounder caught by Olin
Bycroft of Foresthill, but browns are
pretty rare here. Sugar Pine fishes best
during the spring,” said Kellogg.
About 15 minutes later after Kellogg
said that, a guy walked down
the water and quipped,
“I was going to shoot
you, but I decided
not to. Have you
caught anything?”
“No, there’s
fish surfacing
off shore,
but they’re
not biting