9/4/12 North Lake Tahoe

Ronnie and Kevin from Texas

We launched this morning out of North Shore at 5:15 AM. After completing our paperwork we headed out for a 6-mile boat ride. We started fishing in 350′ of water with the plan to move into 150’ or so, we started marking suspended fish around 200 to 280 feet. We dropped down and within 5 minutes we had a seven pound Lake Tahoe Mackinaw in the box. That was followed with a double. One was around 5 pounds and the other around three. It wasn’t long before we had another. The action was fast for a short time. We ended up with 6 in the boat and one we lost about 20’ from the net. All these fish were nice fish and full of shrimp. All our fish today came from 310” of water on our Cannon downriggers. Keep in mind with that kind of depth the blow back on our weights, we were likely around 250’. We caught all our fish on spoons, Needlefish and Coyote spoons worked well. At 8:00 AM it was like the light switch turned off. We talked about running to South Shore and chase some Kokanee but decided to call it a day.

 

 

9/2/12 & 9/3/12 Lake Tahoe

We spent the last two days chasing Kokanee on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe.  We launched both days at Cave Rock and headed straight to the Camp Richardson area.  Most of the boats were working in a little closer than we were. We had solid action both days. On Sunday we had three different doubles and consistent action, which made it nice with with five people on board. The hot set up on Sunday was a Shasta Tackle Copper Melon with an Uncle Larry’s Tropical Tiger spinner and a Sep’s Copper Dodger with a RMT Watermelon Assassin Spinner.  We also were using ball trolls behind Chrome Shark Cannon Balls.

On Monday we didn’t have any doubles but again it was a very consistent bit for us. It didn’t take long to have full limits of nice Lake Tahoe Kokanee. Our set ups Monday were a little different. Sep’s Watermelon Strike Master with a RMT Watermelon Assassin spinner did extremely well. The other set up that worked well was a RMT Copper Orange Hawaiian and an Uncle Larry’s Tropical Tiger. Everything was tipped with Pink Patuzke Fire Corn. The best depth both days was 112’. All the fish we caught were starting to turn however they all produced very nice fillets.

8/30/12 Lake Tahoe

We spent the day on Lake Tahoe, just messing around with a couple friends.  We launched on the East Shore of Lake Tahoe at Cave Rock at 6:00 AM and headed straight over to Camp Richardson area in search for some Kokanee. It didn’t take long to find some nice school of Kokanee to work. We started with a variety of set ups. The fish seemed to like the Copper/Melon Sling Blade with a Uncle Larry’s Tropical Tiger. We were running three Kokanee rods and dropped one Dodger/Minnow rig a little deeper to try for a Mack. To my surprise we picked up a Kokanee at 180’ on that set up.  We just kept throwing every combination we could come up with to try to figure out what the hot Kokanee set up was going to be. The winners for the day were the Copper/Melon Sling Blade with the Uncle Larry’s Tropical Tiger and a Sep’s Copper/Pink dodger and a Rocky Mountain Tackle Watermelon Assign Sinner. Now let’s talk about the corn. We had a couple different types today. First was the straight Pautzke Fire Corn in Red and Pink. It worked, however, the hot corn today was the White Shoepeg cured in red Pautzke Fire Cure with a little Garlic added. After hooking over 17 Kokanee and putting 10 very nice Tahoe Kokanee in the box we headed up North to check on some Mackinaw spots.

We ran North about 6 miles and found a couple nice schools of Mackinaw. We dropped Dodger and Minnow combinations in and it wasn’t long before we had our first fish. The bad news is we lost it about 20’ from the boat. We ended up hooking another four Mackinaw and landing three of those. The size was nothing to brag about. The biggest was around 3 pounds. The wind started to come up so we decided to call it a day and head back for Cave Rock. All in all, it was a great day on the water with a couple good friends. I had time to try a ton of different combinations on the Kokanee that I normally wouldn’t have time to do.

Another fantastic day on Lake Tahoe!

8/27/12 Donner Lake

For some reason, I set the alarm an hour earlier than I needed today and showed up at the Donner Lake ramp way to early. It didn’t take me long to also discover it was a lot colder than the days before. Okay enough complaining. We got the boat in the water and everything ready to go. Our clients showed up and off we went in search of Kokanee and maybe even a Mack or two. We were almost up to Loch Leven Lodge and found some nice schools of fish around 50 feet deep. We dropped in a Sep’s Watermelon Strike Master with a pink Uncle Larry’s spinner tipped with pink Pautzke’s Fire Corn behind a Black Shark Cannonball weight. The next setup we dropped in was a Shasta Tackle pink Melon Sling Blade with a Rocky Mountain Tackle pink Plankton spinner also tipped with Pink Pautzke Fire Corn. The next step was going to be to drop a couple bigger baits down for Mackinaw, however, the Kokanee didn’t seem to want to give us a break. It was fast action for the first hour with bright Donner Lake Kokanee. We finely managed to get some bigger bait’s down but the Mackinaw bite wasn’t happening for us today. After a slower spell that lasted about an hour the bite picked up again and we netted a few more and called it a day. After a chilly morning on Donner it turned out to be a nice day with some nice Kokanee. The Kokanee at Donner this year are by no means big, they and sure nice bright clean and good eating fish.

8/13/12 Donner Lake

Our son-in-law Steve Brown took the Tight Lines boat out to target some Donner Lake Kokanee. Gary Tonnesen of Antelope along with Dan Bacher of the Fish Sniffer joined Steve. They started fishing in front of Loch Leven Lodge. They quickly found action down 50 feet on a Sep’s Watermelon Strike Master dodger and a Uncle Larry’s Pink Tiger tipped with Pink Pautzke Fire Corn. Steve also ran one heavier G-Loomis STR 1063 C-1 rod down a little deeper in an effort to pick up a big Lake Trout (Mackinaw). They did end up with one, however, it was in the 3-pound range. The Mackinaw fell for a Denis Pierce tandem fly in a Kokanee pattern with Pautzke Krill added. Other productive lures for Steve were Rocky Mountain Plankton series spinners and Tsunami dodgers, Shasta Tackle Glow Sling Blades

The Kokanee are not trophy size. On this day they averaged 11 to 14 inches, there are a lot of them making the action steady.

Davis Lake Rainbows

Davis Lake is where were fishing today.  But first, as we were traveling on Hwy 89 out of Truckee we soon learned the highway was a solid ice. After a little thrill with the truck and boat going sideways we decided to slow down and take our time. We arrived at the Honker Cove parking lot, I knew it was not going to an easy launch. We found about 3 inches of snow with solid ice under it. Knowing, I was going to need chains to get up the ramp, I decided to install them in the upper parking lot rather than on the ramp. As I was installing the chains I asked my son-in-law to walk down and check the ramp. Upon returning, he told me, “the whole cove was solid ice”. I was even more disappointed and broke the news to our clients. We decided to run over to Mallards Cove and check that ramp. We found a lot less snow and open water at the ramp. With chains still installed we were able to get the boat in the water without much of a problem.

We started trolling straight out in front of the ramp and headed towards the big island. About half hour without a hit, I was wondering if it was just going to be one of those days. Once we got into a little deeper water I started marking fish just off the bottom at 30 feet. The water temperature was 37 degrees on the surface so I dropped a probe to see what the temperature was at 30 feet. The result was 38 degrees at 30 feet of water, one degree difference is a all. I started targeting the fish on the bottom using the downriggers and in no time we were hooked up. Our clients today were Tom Gore of Healdsburg and Geoff Eisenberg of San Francisco who landed his first fish ever, a nice 16 inch rainbow. I was glad we were using our new Lamiglas kokanee rods with P-Line 6 lb. CXX, it made that 16 inch fish feel much bigger then it was. From that point on we put 15 nice rainbows in the boat in two and a half hours. We used several different lures such as a Shasta Tackle Red/Gold Humdingers and Needlefish but they seemed to want the smallest Dick Night spoon in Copper/Pink slathered with Pro-Cure Garlic Plus. The weather ran the gamut today from sun to snow flurries. After learning this was Geoff first fish ever and we ended up with limits of nice rainbows, it made all the extra effort getting the boat in the water well worth it.

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Lake Oroville

We went out today with our client Steve Mothersell in his Rogue Jet, he wanted me to show him how some of his equipment works. We launched at the spillway ramp around 6:30 AM. We didnt get 50 yards from the ramp and I was showing Steve what the action of a Sling Blade should look like when we hooked about a 14″ Coho, our lure wasnt 10 from the boat. We knew then it was going to be a hot bite. Needless to say, we hooked fish non stop. We put 10 Cohos in the ice chest for table fare with the biggest going about 16.5″. All these fish were stuffed with pound smelt. We hooked all our fish in the top 10 of water on 6″ UV Glow Sling Blades and white Hoochies with Pro Cure Anchovy scent. These fish are growing fast and Oroville will only get better in the weeks to come.

Back on the Water

During the past couple months we have focused on Sport Shows and Seminars. Tomorrow we are fishing on Lake Oroville…we will keep you posted!

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Stampede Continues to Produce

We left the ramp just before sun up and headed back to the area that has been producing for us. We put three StingFish in at depths of 15, 20 and 25 feet. We trolled for a couple hours without any action. The ice was starting to appear in areas again this morning, Im was glad I re-spooled my reels with 17 lb. P-Line CXX as we made our way through small areas of ice. Just after 8:00 AM two rods released from the downriggers. I knew we must have hit bottom because we had moved into some shallower water. It didnt take long to discover to my surprise we had a double. I was in disbelief when we landed a 14 and 13 lb. Mackinaw. Both fish were released after some quick photos. About 30 minutes later we landed another Mack that went around 4 pounds which was also released. We spent the next hour or so working the same area but the bite was off. At 11:00 AM sharp the famous Stampede wind came up to the point it was miserable. We decided to call it a day. The water temp is running around 37 degrees.

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Trinity Lake

We launched just shortly after sunrise at the Cedar Stock Resort and headed to the Papoose Arm. We dropped our rigs, which consisted of White Hoochies coated with Pro-Cure “Bloody Tuna” gel as well as the New Water Soluble “Bloody Tuna” teamed with UV Sling Blades. The water tempetature on the surface was 45.6 degrees, and after dropping a “Fish Hawk” probe down to 70 feet of water, the temp did not change a full degree. We made quite a few runs up this arm and netted 5 fish up to 4 pounds, we lost another 6 at the boat. Most of the fish hit between 60 and 75 feet of water and seemed to be scattered throughout at different depths.