VOL. 37 • ISS. 13
FRESHWATER
June 8- 22, 2018
31 and 15 inches long.”
“ We couldn’ t have asked for better conditions,” he noted.“ We must have released 30-40 fish also. We trolled with Paulina Peak Tackle purple haze and lemonade with matching dodgers.”
On his previous trip, Netzel took Gary Durbin of kokaneemart. com and Richie Height of Paulina Peak Tackle to Stampede for 3 limits of kokanee to over 15”.“ The fish were everywhere and at every depth,” said Netzel.
TAHOE
Mixed Bag Excitement Persists For Tahoe Fishermen
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE- Mackinaw fishing is very good at Lake Tahoe with most trips producing full limits. Most of the fish are keepers in the 2 to 8 pound class, but there are larger fish in the mix too. Anglers are also landing the occasional rainbow and brown trout.
Mike Nielsen of Tahoe Topliners Guide Service has been doing a lot of trolling with minnow plugs for a mix of rainbows, browns and macks. His clients have been rounding up good numbers of 2 to 4 pound fish, but there have been some much large mackinaw into the high teens in the mix too. Nielsen’ s last really big fish hit the deck on May 12 when one of his clients landed a mack that was just under 20 pounds.
Gene St. Denis of Blue Ribbon Charters continues to put his clients on limits of mackinaw while trolling dodgers and rigged minnows. St. Denis is trolling from 150 to 250 feet deep off Sugar Pine, Dollar and Calneva Points. The fish are running 3 to 6 pounds with the occasional larger fish to 12 pounds mixed in.
Mickey Daniels of Mickey’ s Big Mack Charters continues to enjoy good fishing at the lake’ s north end while pulling a variety of offering in deep water.
The folks at Tahoe Sportfishing are also experiencing solid action while targeting mackinaw. They are tempting their fish mainly with rigged minnows trolled behind flashers. The fish are averaging 3 to 6 pounds, but larger fish are showing up occasionally. Limits have been the rule for most.
TRINITY LAKE / RIVER
Kings, Kokanee and Rainbows Reward Anglers
WEAVERVILLE – Jeff Goodwin Guide Service reported that Trinity Lake is“ fishing fairly well” for kings, kokanee and rainbow trout.
“ I’ ve talked with some anglers that are catching kings to 6 lbs and kokanee around to around 9”, which is a lot smaller than last year’ s spring kokanee,” said Goodwin.“ Trout fishing is also great over deep water near the surface trolling your typical trout gear like Mack’ s Lure Wedding Rings or Humdingers”
“ I really like to troll Arctic Fox trolling flies tipped with a worm this time of the year. The trout are averaging 16-18” and are pretty easy to get into,” he added.
Shore anglers are picking up rainbow trout ranging from 10 to 18 inches at the mouths of the tributaries to Trinity Lake, reported Tim Brady at Brady’ s Outdoors in Trinity Center. Anglers are using PowerBait, Mice Tails, nightcrawlers, marshmallows, salmon eggs, Kastmasters, Rooster Tail spinners and other offerings.
“ The bass fishing is wide-open now,” said Brady.“ Boaters are hooking largemouths and smallmouths almost every way they can, using everything ranging from swimbaits to Hula Poppers. The dredger piles at the north end of the lake are producing some of the best action.”
Brady hasn’ t received any reports on spring Chinooks caught yet on the Trinity River, but said that should happen as the spring pulse flows are ramped down.
The Bureau of Reclamation will ramp down the flows until the summer base flow of 450 cfs is reached June 30. The releases for this“ critically dry” 2018 water year will result in an annual total volume of 369,000 acre-feet.
A daily schedule of flow releases is available at www. trrp. net / restore / flows / current /, and the public may subscribe to automated notifications( via phone or email) of Trinity River release changes.
Trinity Lake is holding 1,904,664 acre feet of water, 78 percent of capacity and 91 percent of the 10 year average.
- Dan Bacher
WEST DELTA
Tung Le nailed this big shad while fishing the Sacramento River on May 16.
Photo courtesy of FISHSNIFFER. COM.
Striper Limits Are Still The Rule!
BRANNAN ISLAND-“ We’ ve been on limits for about a month,” reported Captain David Hammond of Delta Pro Fishing.“ Right now the stripers are spread out some. There are some anglers that are struggling, but we are getting them. You’ ve got to know the different areas and work the tides.”
“ The combination of on again off again wind and the fact that the fish are spread out a little has been resulting in light pressure. My key to success has been staying on the move. Yo-Zuris, both deep and shallow runners, are the lure of choice right now. Color hasn’ t been a big factor, but making sure your lure is running clean makes a big difference. We’ ve had some debris in the water at times and you don’ t want any junk trailing from your lures,”
tipped Hammond.“ In terms of size things are variable. Some days it’ s all schoolie fish, but other days we run into some big bass. It just depends which pods of bass you cross paths with on any given day. We’ ll keep on running trips up into the first week of June and I expect limit catches to hold up,” Hammond concluded.
Bait anglers are rounding up limits while fishing both the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rivers, but you’ ve got to sort through lots of shakers for a keeper when soaking baits like pile worms, anchovies and shad.
Sturgeon are still on the chomp in the upper reaches of Suisun Bay, but only a handful of anglers are trying for them. If you go, roe and eel are the best performing sturgeon baits at this time.
On the fast side, I’ ve done this work with minnow plugs from Yo-Zuri and Rapala and a plethora of tiny bass style crankbaits. When moving slow makes sense I might run a Flatfish or even an Apex, but mainly when I’ m pulling plugs I like to keep the speed up.
As a result, I’ m very excited about the
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Mag Lip 2.0 and 2.5 from Yakima Bait, that I’ m told will run up to 4 miles per hour.
I just got a selection of these plugs from the legendary Buzz Ramsey and he speaks very highly of them. The next time I hit a trout lake or river, I will be getting a Mag Lip wet.
Buzz tells me that the plugs have an erratic action that he describes as“ skip beat”. That sounds perfect to me. I’ m a big believer in erratic action creating strikes.
The Mag Lip 2.0 will dive to 5 feet,
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HOW TO By Cal Kellogg continued from page 5
while the 2.5 can hit 8 feet deep. Mag Lips come in a wide range of different colors from Frog on the dark end to baitfish metallic on the light end and there is every color in between including orange and pink.
No. 3: Flashers and A Threaded Worm
If I had to pick my all time most consistently productive trolling set up, I’ d have to go with the old school flasher and worm presentation. Not only does this rig catch trout, but it also illustrates that those dang trout aren’ t quite as smart as we give them credit for being …
“ Hmmm I’ m a little hungry,” says Mr. Trout.“ Look at all those shiny whirling metal blades … What’ s that behind the blades? A night crawler, spinning through water at an oh so unnatural 1.5 miles per hour. I think I’ ll grab at that worm and hit it time after time until I get hooked by that No. 6 baitholder that I can clearly see.”
In all seriousness that’ s about the shape of it. It doesn’ t look right and it doesn’ t seem right, but a set of flashers teamed with a dirty old worm catches wild trout and planters, rainbows, browns macks and more.
So what flashers am I running this season? I’ ve spent a lot of time playing with Vance’ s flashers and love them, but this year I’ m going to field test a couple new sets of flashers. One set is the Mack’ s Lure Flash Lite flashers. Flash Lites are very innovative in that they don’ t use metal blades. Instead the blades are made of Mylar and as a result the flashers weigh very little.
The other flashers I’ ll be using are Rooster Trolls from Yakima Bait. These flashers come in 4 different sizes and make use of the same blade that makes Rooster Tail spinners so deadly.
No. 4: Dodger and Hoochie
For a long time the only time I rigged up with a dodger and hoochie was when landlocked salmon were on the menu, particularly landlocked kings.
I’ ve caught a lot of big salmon pulling hoochies behind dodgers, but I’ ve also caught a lot of hefty rainbows and spotted
bass on this deadly rig too. As an aside, I can think of several instances when I’ ve found mixed pods of spotted bass, king salmon and rainbow trout holding around bait in open water. I’ ve found these fish while looking for kings and interestingly when I’ ve found these species schooled together the fish have always tended to be large.
A few years ago, Paul Kneeland and I found bait about 60 feet deep off one of Shasta’ s big islands. In three passes, I caught a rainbow, a spot and a king on a watermelon Sling Blade trailing a blue and white hoochie. All three of those fish were over 3 pounds. Paul had a 3ish pound spot, a big rainbow and something big that bolted at the boat and tossed the hook.
Back to the hoochie and dodger. When I say hoochie I’ m including both traditional hoochies and hoochie like baits such as Ace Hi flies and Kok-A-Nuts. These baits sort of represent the nexus of the hoochie and the trolling fly.
Anyhow when you put a hoochie 2 to 3 dodger lengths behind a blade you’ ve got a terrific baitfish imitation that has a very attractive pause and pulse action.
Bright colored hoochies work and so do baitfish colored models. I start out with baitfish colors, but some guys troll bright pink most of the time and hook just as many fish as I do … But I like to think the ones I catch are smarter... LOL
Get some hoochies. Run them behind dodgers. Catch anything that gobbles baitfish in open water … It’ s that simple, sometimes … LOL!