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ENLARGE
This fall the lake fishing is better than most of our river fisheries.
The best fish story of the week came from local angler Mike Pumphery. He keeps his eye on the weather, looking for the right conditions to fish Rollins Lake.
Last Thursday was one of those promising days with an approaching weather front. Mike likes to fish the falling barometer and good breezes that precede a rainstorm. He arrived at the lake to find the water level had risen about 20 feet, bringing the lake back to within a dozen feet of full capacity.
He launched at Greenhorn and started fishing the cove adjacent to the ramp. Watching his fish finder he found the bait schools tightly balled up. Normally a school of pond smelt in Rollins give a spotted image on the screen. On Thursday, the screen was black with the bait tightly packed together, leading to the conclusion that predators were working the school.
Mike fished Kastmaster and Little Cleo chrome spoons and did well on bass in the 11 to 14 inch range. It proved to be one of his better days for numbers on Rollins.
The biggest fish of the day came on a small spinner bait style lure fished deep along a downed tree. He got a solid hit that stopped his retrieve. The headshake felt like a large fish. The fish repeatedly swam into the brush and just stopped. Mike thought he had gotten off and hung his lure on a branch on a couple of occasions. After 15 minutes of give and take, Mike got him out of the structure and coming toward the surface in open water. The first glimpse of the fish showed a brown back and yellow hued belly. This had Mike thinking monster brown trout.
In the end when the fish was in the net it proved to be a 10-pound squaw fish. It was not what you would get mounted for a barbershop wall, but it was a remarkable fish none the less. Water temperature at Rollins last week was 60 degrees.
The following are some of the better recent lake reports.
Tom from the Almanor Fly Fishing Company reports good rainbow and brown fishing in the lake. The rainbows are in shallow feeding on midge pupa and other small insects, olive is the best color. The browns are sticking close to the schools of pond smelt, which can be almost any where on the lake. Tom's best recommendation is to look to your fish finder or to the diving birds to locate the baitfish.
Tom caught and released a 9-pound rainbow last week at the outflow from the Butt Lake power house. He ties a floating pond smelt imitation that mimics the prime food source being drafted out of Almanor and into Butt.
The lower elevation west slope reservoirs are all in the 59 to 62 degree temperature range. This tight temperature spread goes from Lake Shasta down to New Melones. The traditional winter trout fisheries have begun to take off. Comanche and Amador have begun their fall trout plants. Long line trollers report limits of trout on a variety of lures.
Ed Everhart fished the season finale tournament of the Future Pro Bass Tour at New Melones this past weekend. It was a winner-takes-all event with a bass boat as the prize. The strategy was to aim for that one big bass that would get you ahead of the pack. The winning angler had a 9-pound bass that put him out in front of the field.
Ed concentrated on casting swim baits through the two-day event, which did not pan out for him. He and his son, Cole, caught school size bass on drop shot rigs.
Ed reported catching incidental trout during the bass tournament. His largest was 2.5 pounds. The trout were up shallow with the bass and the baitfish.
Pyramid Lake Nevada is fishing well. Water temp was 53 to 55 degrees last week. The cutthroats trout have moved shallow enough for the shore anglers to get at them. A source mentioned black with red flash, trolling flies and orange lures worked well in the past week. Not a lot of big fish are coming in. George Molino from the Pyramid Store says that an 8-pound trout was the largest he has weighed in during the last couple weeks. Fish are scattered both vertically and around the lake.
The Lower Yuba has fish in the system but the bite has been mediocre. You can pick up a few trout/steelhead behind spawning salmon on eggs and nymphs. A good rainstorm with dark clouds and enough rain to stain the water would be helpful.
For those who want to spend their time trying to catch one big fish, you might try dredging the bottom of the deeper holes with a heavy leech pattern on a sinking fly line. The larger sea run steelhead respond to big dark streamers such as an Egg Sucking Leech or a Starlight Leech. The trade-off is fishing all day for one or two bites from big fish. Purple or black are good choices for color in sizes as large as No. 4.
November is the prime month for fall steelhead on the Trinity River. There are fish throughout the system, but the numbers are not high relative to the number of anglers. Guide Zack Collins from the “Trinity Outdoors” shop in Weaverville reports 2 to 4 hook ups per day. Fly anglers are doing best fishing multi fly rigs hanging below indicators.
I contacted Larry Bluck from the Chico Fly Shop. Most of his customers are fishing for trout on the Sacramento River. The resident trout can be found from Woodson Bridge on up to Redding. The zone from Woodson Bridge up to Red Bluff has a more transient population.
If you find them on a riffle today they may be gone tomorrow. Whereas, the fish above Red Bluff tend to hold in the same locations day after day, behind spawning salmon. Woodsom Bridge marks the lower end of the prime trout habitat on the Sacramento.
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. Contact him via e-mail at dpeirce@theunion.com.
The best fish story of the week came from local angler Mike Pumphery. He keeps his eye on the weather, looking for the right conditions to fish Rollins Lake.
Last Thursday was one of those promising days with an approaching weather front. Mike likes to fish the falling barometer and good breezes that precede a rainstorm. He arrived at the lake to find the water level had risen about 20 feet, bringing the lake back to within a dozen feet of full capacity.
He launched at Greenhorn and started fishing the cove adjacent to the ramp. Watching his fish finder he found the bait schools tightly balled up. Normally a school of pond smelt in Rollins give a spotted image on the screen. On Thursday, the screen was black with the bait tightly packed together, leading to the conclusion that predators were working the school.
Mike fished Kastmaster and Little Cleo chrome spoons and did well on bass in the 11 to 14 inch range. It proved to be one of his better days for numbers on Rollins.
The biggest fish of the day came on a small spinner bait style lure fished deep along a downed tree. He got a solid hit that stopped his retrieve. The headshake felt like a large fish. The fish repeatedly swam into the brush and just stopped. Mike thought he had gotten off and hung his lure on a branch on a couple of occasions. After 15 minutes of give and take, Mike got him out of the structure and coming toward the surface in open water. The first glimpse of the fish showed a brown back and yellow hued belly. This had Mike thinking monster brown trout.
In the end when the fish was in the net it proved to be a 10-pound squaw fish. It was not what you would get mounted for a barbershop wall, but it was a remarkable fish none the less. Water temperature at Rollins last week was 60 degrees.
The following are some of the better recent lake reports.
Tom from the Almanor Fly Fishing Company reports good rainbow and brown fishing in the lake. The rainbows are in shallow feeding on midge pupa and other small insects, olive is the best color. The browns are sticking close to the schools of pond smelt, which can be almost any where on the lake. Tom's best recommendation is to look to your fish finder or to the diving birds to locate the baitfish.
Tom caught and released a 9-pound rainbow last week at the outflow from the Butt Lake power house. He ties a floating pond smelt imitation that mimics the prime food source being drafted out of Almanor and into Butt.
The lower elevation west slope reservoirs are all in the 59 to 62 degree temperature range. This tight temperature spread goes from Lake Shasta down to New Melones. The traditional winter trout fisheries have begun to take off. Comanche and Amador have begun their fall trout plants. Long line trollers report limits of trout on a variety of lures.
Ed Everhart fished the season finale tournament of the Future Pro Bass Tour at New Melones this past weekend. It was a winner-takes-all event with a bass boat as the prize. The strategy was to aim for that one big bass that would get you ahead of the pack. The winning angler had a 9-pound bass that put him out in front of the field.
Ed concentrated on casting swim baits through the two-day event, which did not pan out for him. He and his son, Cole, caught school size bass on drop shot rigs.
Ed reported catching incidental trout during the bass tournament. His largest was 2.5 pounds. The trout were up shallow with the bass and the baitfish.
Pyramid Lake Nevada is fishing well. Water temp was 53 to 55 degrees last week. The cutthroats trout have moved shallow enough for the shore anglers to get at them. A source mentioned black with red flash, trolling flies and orange lures worked well in the past week. Not a lot of big fish are coming in. George Molino from the Pyramid Store says that an 8-pound trout was the largest he has weighed in during the last couple weeks. Fish are scattered both vertically and around the lake.
The Lower Yuba has fish in the system but the bite has been mediocre. You can pick up a few trout/steelhead behind spawning salmon on eggs and nymphs. A good rainstorm with dark clouds and enough rain to stain the water would be helpful.
For those who want to spend their time trying to catch one big fish, you might try dredging the bottom of the deeper holes with a heavy leech pattern on a sinking fly line. The larger sea run steelhead respond to big dark streamers such as an Egg Sucking Leech or a Starlight Leech. The trade-off is fishing all day for one or two bites from big fish. Purple or black are good choices for color in sizes as large as No. 4.
November is the prime month for fall steelhead on the Trinity River. There are fish throughout the system, but the numbers are not high relative to the number of anglers. Guide Zack Collins from the “Trinity Outdoors” shop in Weaverville reports 2 to 4 hook ups per day. Fly anglers are doing best fishing multi fly rigs hanging below indicators.
I contacted Larry Bluck from the Chico Fly Shop. Most of his customers are fishing for trout on the Sacramento River. The resident trout can be found from Woodson Bridge on up to Redding. The zone from Woodson Bridge up to Red Bluff has a more transient population.
If you find them on a riffle today they may be gone tomorrow. Whereas, the fish above Red Bluff tend to hold in the same locations day after day, behind spawning salmon. Woodsom Bridge marks the lower end of the prime trout habitat on the Sacramento.
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. Contact him via e-mail at dpeirce@theunion.com.
