Denis Peirce: So many options, so little time
Denis Peirce
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12:01 a.m. PT May 6, 2008
It is the first week in May and the fishing is predictably good. There are more good fishing options than there are days to fish them.
Over on the Sacramento River, a school of large stripers arrived last week and moved up as far as Colusa. The largest fish reported was a 41-pound female with many fish weighing more than 30 pounds being reported.
During the day, drifting minnows or fishing cut bait are the best bets. From evening into night, trolling can also be productive as well as throwing large black rubber worms to the bank from a boat drifting on the current. The biggest fish have come to anglers throwing rubber worms.
The shad run has started on the Feather River. The river has unusually low flows. Currently there is only 1,300 cubic feet per second coming down the channel from Oroville. The waterfall at the base of the Shanghai Bend rapids is preventing the shad from moving upriver. This has resulted in a concentration of shad below the rapids. If you want to launch at Boyd's Pump and boat up to Shanghai beware of one shallow bar in the river that would be tough to cross with a prop boat. Verona is another good bet for shad.
Lake Oroville is fishing well for bass. Most of the fish are in the slot limit. The action is in the main body of the lake. Anglers targeting the points have had the best results. The silver salmon in the lake are down below the 20-foot depth now that the surface temps have broken up through the 60-degree mark. The river arms have colder water. The lake has remained at about 150 feet down. The agricultural releases are equal to the snow melt currently, keeping the lake level steady.
Another good bet for the bass angler is the Thermolito Afterbay. It is a 10,000 acre lake below Oroville. It is large but has extensive shallows. Spinner baits are ideal for searching the flats this time of year. Frog baits are also very effective as the weeds grow. Last week a local angler took a 10-pound bass from this water. Once summer comes on, this body of water is very popular with water skiers.
Lower Scotts Flat Lake fished well last week. John Kusanovich and Ed Stember caught both rainbows and browns on their trip. They fished from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. consistently catching fish. The browns came from the upper end of the lake and the rainbows were on the surface in front of the dam feeding on an insect hatch. Most of the fish were in the 8- to 12-inch range.
I received an e-mail from Jack McCrory, a reader of my column and the former longtime athletic director and basketball coach at Bear River High School. He fished Stampede last week. Early in the day he trolled the shallows for browns to no avail. He then switched to kokanee tackle, when he noticed these fish on the surface. The results were a pair of mackinaw that hit his green and black "Wedding Ring" behind a lime-green dodger. The kokanee will be shallow for a short window of time before they go deeper with warming temps.
The Kokanee Power trout fishing derby was held last weekend at Lake Shasta. The winning weight was about 22 pounds for an eight-fish, two-day limit. Most of the larger fish were land-locked kings that came from 80 to 140 feet down. There was a lot of bait fish suspended in the 20 to 40 foot depths with small rainbows and spotted bass feeding on them.
In Sierra County, the North Yuba flow is up to the 1,200 cfs range, due to the melting snow. At the upper elevations the road from Bassett's Station to Graeagle is now open. As of Friday Sardine Lake is the only lake in the area that is ice free. Gold Lake was still snow covered with puddles forming on top of the ice.
The lower Yuba River below the Highway 20 bridge is fishing well for the fly anglers. There are good caddis hatches coming off most evenings. The trout/steelhead populations in the river seemed to have rebounded well from a couple of poor years. Be sure to stay late for the best fishing.
The Gold Country Fly Fishers will hold their monthly meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday (May 7) in Seaman's Lodge, Pioneer Park, Nevada City. The featured speaker will be Bill Marts, from The Fly Shop in Redding. The topic will be: where, when, and how to fly fish for carp. The public is welcome to attend.
For those of you who intend to apply for big game hunting tags, the DF&G has set June 2 as the date your application need to be in. Go to www.dfg.ca.gov for details.
Denis Peirce writes a weekly fishing column for The Union and is host of "The KNCO Fishing & Outdoor Report," which airs 6-7 p.m. Fridays and 5-6 a.m. Saturdays on 830-AM radio. He may be reached via e-mail at dpeirce@theunion.com
