Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3906 Feb 28- Mar 13 | Page 12

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Feb 28-Mar 13, 2020
VOL.39 • ISS. 6
The Spring Lakes Guide
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continued from page 1
For example, Folsom is booting out a
few very nice rainbows and kings, but guys
hooking them are putting in a lot of time. If
you just randomly take a trolling trip out to
Folsom, you stand a good chance of getting
skunked. The same is true of a number
of other lakes such as Don Pedro, New
Melones, Collins and Shasta.
This being the case, it’s been tough to
settle on destinations to explore. Doubly
tough when you consider not only do I have
to create content for the Fish Sniffer, but I
also have to come up with first hand video
content for my Fish-Hunt-Shoot YouTube
Channel. So where have I gone to hook up?
Well after scoring well on planted rainbow
trout at Rollins Lake a couple weeks ago, I
figured that was a good place to begin so I
took a trip up there just prior to the Super
Bowl.
The trout were still there and they seemed
to be settling in nicely. I found then in a
couple different areas hammering schools of
pond smelt from 10 to 15 feet deep.
Peddling the Hobie along at 2.7 to 3
miles an hour for 7 hours and 10 minutes,
I hammered more than 20 rainbows
Cal Kellogg caught over 20 trout while fast
trolling spoons during his most recent visit
to Rollins Lake including this dandy holdover
rainbow.
Photo by CAL KELLOGG, Fish Sniffer Staff.
while pulling smelt imitating spoons. The
highlight of the day came up in the Bear
River Gooseneck when I hooked, landed and
released a hard fighting 16-inch holdover
rainbow, a nice addition to the planters.
My next stop was Sugar Pine Reservoir
about five days later. This time Lucy joined
me on the Hobie and Dan Bacher turned out
to try his hand at some bank action.
The lake had been planted a few weeks
prior to our visit and the rainbows were there,
but they were not easy to catch. They were
eating some sort of small midges and weren’t
too keen on hitting lures or bait.
I ended up with 6 rainbows to about 14
inches, all of which I released. To get them
I went through a lot of different lures. The
only thing I could get them on was a silver
and orange 2.5 Mag Lip wiggling along at
1.8 mph.
The bite was far from wide open, but
without the Mag Lip’s skip beat swimming
action I probably would have gotten
skunked!
My most recent adventure was a power
boat excursion to Bullards Bar Reservoir in
the Duckworth with Lucy and Wes Ward.
We dumped the boat at the dam, found a
few scattered fish there and hooked a few,
but we were soon off looking for greener
grass. We found it right off the Dark Day
ramp.
We encountered big pods of kokanee
scattered from 25 to 90 feet deep and they
were biters. That was the good news. They
would jump all over a pink hoochie or a
pink Mack’s Lure Smile Blade Wedding
Ring pulled behind a Mack’s Lure Sling
Blade dodger and getting limits wasn’t an
issue.
The problem was the size of the
sockeyes. They were tiny. The largest
salmon we landed might have stretched to 10
inches…maybe?
I have a rule about kokanee fishing that
goes like this. If the kokanee aren’t 13
inches long they typically can’t rip the
line out of the downrigger clip and they
aren’t much fun to catch. They are just too
dang small to put up a fight. 13 to 16 inch
‘kokes are lots of fun to catch and fish over
16 typically put up an epic drag spinning
battle.
Will I go back to Bullards? Maybe, but I
sort of doubt it unless the salmon undergo a
major growth spirt.
Bullards is one of those lakes that looks
fantastic, but often leaves me disap-
pointed. It looks like it should be a killer
rainbow fishery, but it’s not. There are a
few rainbows there in the arms, but I’ve
never gotten big numbers. The kokanee,
while beautiful and in great condition, are
typically small. The spotted bass fishing is
the best thing going at the lake and I’ve had
some very enjoyable outings targeting them,
but alas I’m not a “bass guy” when all is
said and done…
Where to next? I don’t know, but I will
say that if these warm dry conditions
persist, look for spring fishing to get started
early. I think we’ve got some epic days
ahead in the near future on the California
Delta for spring run stripers, in S.F. Bay for
spring halibut and at a number of trout lakes
including Shasta, Almanor, Davis, French
Meadows and many many more!