Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3726 Dec 8-21 | Page 14

14
FRESHWATER
Dec 7 - 21, 2018
VOL.37 • ISS. 26
FRESHWATER REPORTS:
CONTINUED FROM PG 11
QUARRY LAKES
rockymountainrec.com/lakes/lake-rancho-
seco.htm or https://www.smud.org/en/
about-smud/community/recreational-
areas/rancho-seco-lake.htm

- Dan Bacher
cont.
PowerBait, and one by fly-fishing with an
olive and green Woolly Bugger, reported
Joe Sullivan of the East Bay Regional
Park District.
Dexter M. from Union City bagged his
limit of trout two trips in a row while fishing
from a kayak in front of Fisherman’s
Row with Cotton Cordell Big O lures. His
largest trout was over four pounds.
Dan N. from Fremont landed a six-
pound trout from Fisherman’s Row, using
rainbow PowerBait.
Bill S. from Hayward caught three
rainbow trout to over 5 pounds from the
peninsula while fishing orange worms
and white eggs. Luke J. from San Jose
caught two trout to nearly 4 pounds to the
left of the swim beach using garlic rainbow
PowerBait.
Lionel S. from Union City reeled in a
four-and-a-half pound trout from the point
of the peninsula using PowerDough.
REDDING
Big Kings Still Bite As Season
Enters Final Weeks
RANCHO SECO LAKE
Trout Plants Boost Catches
HERALD – The annual trout plants are
in full swing at the Sacramento Municipal
Utility District’s Rancho Seco Reservoir.
The first plant of 500 pounds of trophy
rainbows went in on the week of October
22. Since then, the lake was planted with
1000 pounds of catchable on November
21.
The next two plants will be 500 pounds
of catchable rainbows the week of
December 3 and another 500 pounds the
week of December 17.
Anglers are hooking the hard-fighting
trout while tossing out PowerBait, worms,
Kastmasters, jigs and spinners from both
shore and boats. Fishing pressure has
been light, according to Dena Oneto of the
Rocky Mountain Recreation Company.
The scheduled dam maintenance that
impacted the water level at Rancho Seco
has been completed.
Rancho Seco Recreational Area
is a 400-acre park overflowing with
recreational opportunities including
the surface. Other times I’ll want to get it
down a bit. If there is air in your bubble
the bubble is going to float. That’s fine if
you want to fish just under the surface, but
you won’t be able to get any depth.
On the other hand, a full bubble has
zero buoyancy. If you allow a full bubble
to set in one spot without retrieving it,
it will slowly sink and you can count it
down. When using flies teamed with a
full bubble a deadly trick is to stop your
retrieve periodically and allow the bubble
to sink, slowly drawing the fly down with
it. Lots of times the sight of that slowly
descending fly is tempting enough to turn
followers into hooked fish.
When I rig up for bubble fishing I use
Kaz Okada traveled all the way to Eagle Lake from southern California to check an Eagle
Lake rainbow off his California Heritage Trout Challenge list on November 9.
Photo courtesy of BIG DADDY’S GUIDE SERVICE, Quincy.
camping, boating, fishing, swimming and
wildlife viewing. The 160-acre lake is fed
by the Folsom South Canal and is a great
year-round day or overnight getaway
located in California’s Central Valley, just
25 miles from downtown Sacramento.
The area was acquired by the
Sacramento Municipal Utility District in
1992 and has developed into a scenic
HOW TO
By Cal Kellogg
a reel spooled with standard high quality
mono, but I use 6 or 8 pound fluorocarbon
for my leader. I’ve used leaders as long as
5 feet and as short as 18 inches. Overall,
I think leaders in the 24 to 36 inch range
work best. These leaders are long enough
to get the bait away from the bubble a
bit, but not so long as to make casting
difficult.
When targeting trout, the number one
offering you can employ is a streamer
style fly that incorporates marabou. My
favorites are either woolly buggers or
Sep’s trolling flies. Big flies will catch
fish, but if big flies fail don’t be afraid to
go smaller and smaller until you get hit.
In high mountain lakes, I’ve found No.
14 and 16 aquatic
Salmon • Trout • Kokanee
beetle imitations to
be deadly.
In addition
to flies you can
• Stampede
Kokanee
• Oroville
Kings
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Sacramento River
Fall Salmon!
3713
recreational area and wildlife refuge.
Locals and visitors enjoy the land, wildlife
and water activities offered throughout
this facility. Developing recreational
opportunities for nearby cities and
preserving the land is a central focus at
Rancho Seco.
For more information, call 209-
748-2318, or visit: http://www.
continued from page 9
employ a variety of tiny spoons like the
afore mentioned Dick Nites and Sockeye
Slammers as well Needlefish and others.
Natural baits like mealworms, whole
threaded night crawlers, pieces of
threaded crawler, crickets and salmon
eggs also work great when teamed with a
bubble.
Now that you’ve got some ideas about
what to throw let’s talk presentation. As a
general rule bubble fishing means using a
slow seductive retrieve. Most of the time
you want to make a long cast and then
S-L-O-W-L-Y retrieve the rig.
A full bobber makes a substantial splash
when it hits the water and you might be
worried that the splash will scare the
trout. I used to worry about that, but over
time I’ve come to believe that the splash
actually attracts trout.
I generally start out working my full
bubble just under the surface. I cast and
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[phone]
REDDING - The air is chilly, the fall
colors are awesome, big chromers are in
the river and most days the crowds are
light, that’s the scene on the Sacramento
River between Redding and Red Bluff.
“The fishing has been pretty good,
especially on days when there isn’t a lot
of boat traffic. The river is running clear,
so a lot of boat traffic can spook the fish.
Most days that hasn’t been a problem,”
reported Mike Bogue of Mike Bogue’s
Guide Service.
“We haven’t gotten anything huge
recently, but 20 plus pounders are
common. We had a fish about 22
yesterday. It was a really nice chromer.
The fact is that we get some of the best
quality fish toward the end of the season.
I’ve been carrying roe on the boat, but in
reality we haven’t had many chances to
use it. Large T-55 and T-60 Flatfish have
been working really well. Put one of those
plugs in front of a fresh fish and good
things have been happening,” Bogue
laughed.
Robert Weese of Northern California
Guide Service has also been putting his
clients on limits of beautiful kings most
days. Robert is relying on Flatfish early
and then switching over to roe once the
sun hits the water if limits of kings aren’t
already in the box.
If you’d like to get after some big late
season Sacramento River kings before
the season ends in December 15, both
Robert Weese and Mike Bogue are top
sticks. To book a trip with Weese of
Northern California Guide Service, give
him a ring at [phone]. To arrange
a trip with Mike Bogue of Mike Bogue’s
Guide Service reach out to Mike at (530)
246-8457.
www.tngmotorsports.com
Pro Guide Jerry Lampkin -- 25 years experience!
immediately start my retrieve after splash
down. I elevate the rod tip a bit and
make my retrieve so I can just see the
submerged bubble bulging the surface.
The wake the bubble creates also seems to
draw fish close. When they come to inves-
tigate and spot that fly it’s often Fish On!
When steady near surface retrieves
aren’t working, I’ll experiment with
pauses and twitches and I’ll try counting
the bubble down to various depths.
Strikes don’t tend to be savage or super
subtle either. The small slow moving
offerings typically used look like an easy
meal to the trout. As a result, they just
seem to cruise up behind flies and small
lures and engulf them.
Generally, when you get hit you’ll feel
weight, but sometimes you’ll feel a harder
grab. Regardless you want to use a hook
set that I refer to as a load up set. Instead
of simply rearing back on the rod, I start
my hookset with several fast cranks of the
reel. Only when the tip of the rod starts to
load against the fish do I come back with
the rod and rather than using a sharp jab,
I use more of a sweep to imbed the hook
deeply.
More often than not when using the
hook setting approach, I’ve outlined
you’ll find that the hook is imbedded
right in the corner of the trout’s mouth.
The flesh and cartridge in that area is
tough and there is little danger of the fish
shaking the hook