Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3616 July 21- August 4 2017 | Page 7

FRESHWATER
VOL.36 • ISS. 16
7
July 21 - August 4, 2017
The Lowdown On Hot Weather Trout…
^
A lot of anglers think of trout
fishing as a cold season sport.
These are the guys that prefer to chase
rainbows and browns from fall through
spring when cool surface temperatures
bring the fish to the surface. In reality
summer fishing can be outstanding
because the hot conditions force the
trout and the bait to concentrate in the
thermocline, making them easy targets
for anglers equipped with downriggers.
The author pulled this big rainbow out
of 60 feet of water during a mid-summer
trolling trip.
^
You can employ either
conventional tackle or
spinning gear with downriggers, but
conventional tackle works best. Many
anglers, including author Cal Kellogg
prefer to use line counter reels when
trolling for trout and salmon. The reel
shown here is an Abu Garcia 5500
line counter loaded with 10 pound
Trilene Big Game line.
presents
Trout Trolling When
Summer Temps Sizzle
S
o far this summer we’ve already
been through one bout of record tri-
ple digit temperatures and another shot of
hot temperatures are expected
next week. This is hardly the
time to be thinking about trout
trolling, or is it…?
With the widespread
availability of affordable
downriggers and sonar units,
I’m often amazed to learn that
a percentage of trout enthusi-
asts are equipped with neither.
For these folks, trout are a
late fall through late spring
proposition and they turn their
attention elsewhere during the
summer months. To be sure
these guys catch a lot of fish,
but by not fishing during the
summer they are missing out on some of
the best action of the entire year.
Throughout the year I receive quite a
few inquires from trout anglers that don’t
have downriggers and/or decent sonar
and want more information about either
or both. I also get correspondence from
anglers that have downriggers/sonar units,
but don’t understand how to utilize them
to maximum advantage. It is with these
trout anglers in mind that I’m writing this
article.
With daytime temperatures hovering
in 90’s or worse, the last thing on many
anglers’ minds is trout fishing, yet at many
of our deep northern California reservoirs,
this is actually one of the easiest times to
catch trout since they are locked into a
relatively narrow band of water known as
the thermocline.
During the summer the water in our
deep reservoirs stratifies based on tem-
perature. The thermocline is a layer of
water that serves as a separation between
warm surface water and static deep water.
Warm water being less dense then cool
water rises to the top of the water column,
while the coolest densest wa-
ter accumulates at the bottom
of the lake.
As a general rule the warm
surface water holds plenty
of oxygen, but is too warm
to support trout and baitfish
such as threadfin shad or pond
smelt. The water beneath the
thermocline is cool enough to
support trout and baitfish, but
since the deep water doesn’t
circulate to the surface, it
lacks oxygen. It is the water in
the narrow band known as the
thermocline that offers both
suitable temperatures and the
abundant oxygen that trout and baitfish
require. As a result during the summer the
trout and bait lock into the comfort zone
that the thermocline provides.
Baitfish spend the summer feeding
heavily on plankton, while the trout feed
heavily on the bait. The key to trolling
up a mess of trout during the summer is
locating the thermocline and then putting
a baitfish imitating offering into the strike
zone.
High end sonar units can locate the
thermocline based on the density of the
water, but on less expensive units the ther-
mocline will still be well illustrate since it
is the zone where most of the fish and bait
will show up. Trout and bait can leave the
thermocline for periods of time, yet you’ll
know where the thermocline is, since it
will hold the densest concentration of fish.
Most of the time the thermocline is
going to be located anywhere from 50 to
100 feet below the surface, At the lakes
I fish, the most common depth is 60 to
80 feet. There are a lot of ways to get a
FISH SNIFFER
HOW – TO
by Cal Kellogg
^
The standard offering for
working the thermocline
for trout and king salmon in the
summer is a dodger paired with
a baitfish imitating spoon. Here
we see a Vance’s dodger paired
with a Needlefish spoon, via a
30 inch 10 lb test fluorocarbon
leader. The dodger imitates the
sounds that feeding trout make,
thus attracting trout. The spoon
gives the impression of a fleeing
baitfish and wham…FISH ON!
^
In this photo, we see a
Luhr Jensen Needlefish
attached to the line and ready
for battle. Note that the lure is
attached to the leader using a
light wire snap. In order for your
spoons to display maximum
movement it’s critical that you
attach them using either a snap
or a loop knot.
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