18 June 22 - July 6 , 2018 VOL . 37 • ISS . 14

Folsom Lake was in the summer of 1963 when my aunt Alicerae drove me up to the lake to fish for bluegill . I had a great day catching bluegill in the Lakehills Estates and Salmon Falls areas of the lake after getting some advice on tackle and bait to use from the owner of the Green Valley Store on the way to the lake .

At that time , anglers didn ’ t target planted rainbows at Folsom – they went fishing for “ landlocked steelhead .” During the fall and winter , you would see anglers fishing with minnows and nightcrawlers for these 16 to 22-inch fish from the bank at Mormon

Folsom Lake is just two feet from full and the water is now in the trees and shoreline vegetation .

Island , Brown ’ s Ravine and other areas on the lake .

Many years later , I made a trip on May 31 of this year with James Netzel of Tight Lines Guide Service with Jim Harrington of Folsom and Todd Smith of Cameron Park . Rather than fishing with worms and golden grubs under bobbers for bluegill or minnows or nightcrawlers for landlocked steelhead , we were trolling with the latest high-tech gear and rods and reels , using downriggers at 35 feet deep .

The morning started off cool and windy , with a 20 degree drop in the afternoon highs from two days before

Netzel put the Speedy Shiners down at 25 feet deep with the Speedy Shiners at 2.7 mph per hour . The trip kicked off with hot action , as we hooked and landed three scrappy holdover rainbows . in the 12 to 14 inch range right in a row in the area outside of Brown ’ s Ravine . They weren ’ t huge fish , but they jumped and put up a good battle for their size .

After we caught several more fish the wind began to pick up more and Netzel drove the boat up into the South Fork , where the water was calmer . After hooking a couple of more trout there , he went back to the main body and mouth of the south fork where we finished the morning .

We ended up keeping 11 rainbows , as well as releasing several others . The rainbows we kept were all square-tailed holdovers ranging from 12 to 15 inches long . We also landed a Sacramento pike-minnow that we thought was a big rainbow or salmon when it was first hook . The fishing had definitely slowed down from the previous week , when Netzel found some great action on larger rainbows and kings . A trip on Thursday , May 24 , produced limits of rainbows averaging 16 to 18 inches long , along with three kings measuring 22 , 18 and 17

Todd Smith of Cameron Park holds up two rainbows caught on a Folsom Lake trolling adventure with James Netzel of Tight Lines Guide Service .

Photo by DAN BACHER , Fish Sniffer Staff .

Photo by DAN BACHER , Fish Sniffer Staff .

This angler was fishing with Captain James Netzel when he trolled up this 20 inch king and rainbows to 22 inches at Folsom Lake .

Photo courtesy of TIGHT LINES GUIDE SERVICE , Rocklin .

inches .

“ On that trip , we hooked a huge rainbow , the largest I ’ ve ever seen , that spit the hook when we got it up right up to the boat ,” said Netzel . “ We fought the fish for 15 minutes and had to follow it with the boat as the angler fought it .”

He first thought it might be a sturgeon , but when the angler got it up to the surface , Netzel could see it was a rainbow with a big red stripe on it . “ I estimated it was close to 15 or 20 pounds , but we ’ ll never know because it swam away after the hook came off ,” he said .

One might say that this is all just a fish story until you realize that the American River watershed has produced largest wild and holdover rainbows found in the state .

The American River below Nimbus Fish Hatchery produced a 25.04 lb . rainbow ( legally considered a steelhead ) in February 2002 , while Lake Natoma above the dam produced a 27-1 / 2 lb . new inland state rainbow record in 2008 . And Lake Natoma has produced many hundreds of