14 August 21,, 2020 MAP FEATURE
VOL.39 • ISS. 18
2020, the year of the COVID 19
pandemic, has been one of the top years
for big, bold landlocked Chinook salmon
at Lake Oroville since the kings were
stocked by the CDFW in 2013.
While the fishing has been up and
down lately, the quality of the fish
has been excellent, with
an unusual number of
salmon in the 5 to
6 pound range
showing in
the catches
this year.
Daryl
Carter of
Sacramento
and
his wife,
Terese,
regular
participants
in
the NorCal
Trout Anglers
Challenge
events, sampled
the salmon
action at
Oroville at the
end of July. The
bite was better in
May and June,
but it was in July
that they decided
to finally give
the lake a try in their
boat for the first time.
Although they
didn’t hook into big
numbers of salmon
that day, they were
impressed by the average
size of the fish after they
found a school of landlocked
kings.
Clara Ricabal shows off
this beautiful king that
she caught while trolling
with Captain Bret Brady
on Oroville on June 23.
Photo courtesy of
BARE BONES GUIDE
SERVICE.
Lake Oroville offers anglers an array of Chinook salmon, native rainbow trout, spotted bass, largemouth bass, channel catfish, crappie and
bluegill to catch while
Photo by DAN BACHER, Fish Sniffer Staff.
Large Kings Show at Lake Oroville This Season
Their morning started off with slow
fishing after the Carters launched their
boat and headed towards the dam.
Accompanying them in
another boat were their
friends T.J. and Kristin.
Daryl hooked and
landed the first fish
of the day, a 14
inch salmon, while
trolling with
hoochies, tipped
with anchovy
strips, at 49 feet
deep near the
dam.
“After we
didn’t
catch
anything more there, we went
to the Highway 162 Bridge and
trolled at 50 to 100 feet deep,”
said Daryl. It was getting hot and
so they decided to change their
strategy around 3 p.m.
“We decided to try mooching with
anchovies and nightcrawlers in
117 feet of water outside of the
houseboats at Bidwell Canyon
Marina,” he said. “We dropped
our baits down and then reeled
them up so they were 10 to 17 feet
off the bottom.”
T.J. hooked up the first fish,
a big king around. 6 pounds,
while mooching an anchovy. Ten
minutes later, Daryl hooked and
landed a 5-1/2 lb. king, also while
using a whole anchovy.
Over the next 1-1/2 hours they
caught three more fish. Terese
landed one, Daryl picked up
another and Kristin caught a
salmon also.
“Four of the fish weighed around
5-1/2 pounds, with the largest one
going 6 pounds. Our total score
was six fish for the day when
you also include the 14 incher.
We also missed some bites while
mooching. We experienced a
phenomenal bite for an hour,”
said Daryl.
However, as soon as the school moved
through, the bite stopped and they called it
a day. In their boat alone, Daryl and Teresa
had racked up three fish totaling 16-1/2
pounds.
Rob Reimers of Rustic Rob’s Guide
Service, Bret Brady of Bare Bones Guide
Service and other guides have reported
a great spring and summer of fishing at
Lake Oroville while trolling with Kokanee
Series Cut Plugs. Not only have they taken
big chinooks, but they have caught limits a
number of times.
The landlocked king salmon fishery at
Oroville has been a popular and exciting
fishery at Lake Oroville since 2013, but
the fishing took a back seat in 2017 to
the unfolding of events at Oroville Dam
that resulted in the evacuation of nearly
200,000 residents of Butte, Yuba and
Sutter counties on a one hour notice when
Department of Water Resources and local
Daryl Carter of Sacramento successfully battled this
5-1/2 lb. landlocked Chinook while mooching with an
anchovy at Lake Oroville.
Photo courtesy of TERESE CARTER, Sacramento.
law enforcement officials announced that
a failure of the auxiliary spillway was
imminent after the spillway began eroding.
The giant hole caused by erosion in the
primary spillway and then the erosion and
damage to the emergency spillway that
spurred the evacuation, followed by the
release of 100,000 cfs down the primary
spillway, also created the need for two
rescue operations of salmon and steelhead
by the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife (CDFW) and the California
Department of Water Resources (DWR).
The shabby construction of the spillways
that resulted in the evacuation, the failure
of state and federal officials to heed the
advice of environmental groups regarding
safety concerns at the dam, and the
ensuing investigations and construction
activities at the dam was a front-page topic
of local, state, nation and international
media.