Downsize your offering

In the last post I said that I caught my biggest trout on a small lure. well, This week proved that if you want to catch any size fish, you need to down size. The South Bay plants came on Monday. I got there Wednesday afternoon. the bite was slow and the fish were schooling ten feet from shore. People were throwing all sorts of large lures and fly and bubbles. These made a huge splash and scared the fish. I put on a small thrill bobber a non lead split shot and a no.14 beadhead fly . This small rig only casts 30 feet but enters the water with a tiny splash. This was perfect for these trout. In two hours of fishing I caught between 25 and 35 trout ranging from 6in. to 1lb.

The next day at Cottonwood Lake no one was catching anything. I had the lake to myself. You could see fish swimming about but not hitting . I threw out the bobber rig and soon had a fish on. The trout just bit the end of the fly and quickly spit it out. By watching the fish inhale the fly I was able to hook the fish. This went on for two hours until people showed up with large baits and noisy bobbers. The fish stopped and I went home with twenty-one fish landed and released. People please stop trying to catch little trout with big baits . They are not as dumb as they seem. This is the rig . Tie a thrill slip bobber to your line ad weight to cast and tie a small fly to your line any where from two to five feet below the bobber. This rig can be used as a fly rod and is a lot easier to use. Try It!

Trolling

Between fish stocks in the south bay , I took a trip to Lake Chabot before the rains next week muddy up the water. I got a late start arriving at 11:30 am. Geared up the lead core and started to troll. No fish finder as there was a lot of suspended matter which mess up the screen. It took all of ten minutes before the first hook up. The fish hit a Kopper target shad. Ten minutes later another bite, this time a spinner and worm combo. What is strange is that this was the only hit on a worm. I changed to another trolling lure. Lake Chabot is a strange lake to troll in that the fish seem to hit lures which look like minnows. The spoons which work on other lakes do not work as well as minnow baits.

The fish continued to hit all day long as long as we stayed in the lower half of the lake. Nothing toward the dam just wind and sun and noisy geese. Ended up with nine fish caught . All released except a 2.5 lber to eat and unfortunately a 5.2lb whopper which swallowed a J9 broken back rapala in gold red. The fish was bleeding so badly that it would not survive, bummer. I try to snap a picture and release all trout over three pounds. They are spawned out breeders and do not taste as good as the smaller ones.

All the fish were caught on four lures. AJ5 gold broken back Rapala, a Kopper target shad, a shad rap in fire tiger and the biggest three caught on a J9 gold red broken back Rapala. I guess that the bigger the bait the bigger the fish worked this day. Although
My biggest trout a monster 14lber. was caught on a one and a half inch crank bait!

Finally something to write about!!!!

The rain has let up and the fish are getting bigger. I went to Cottonwood Lake the past two days and limited out on one to one and a half pound trout. These look like real fish, fat bellies and fins. They even fight and take out drag. They must have been going to the east bay.The fish hit anything moving. so lure type was not an issue. As the trout got more wary the type of lure and presentation was critical. I went to a small trout worm and a plastic water bubble. Cast out and slowly drag it back. Green power worms and those fantastic egg sucking leeches from Fish pill. were the best bite getters. If you do not have worms you can always throw out power bait and drag it in slowly. Just move the bait. If you are lazy you can take a small chair ,sit down and cast. If you do not want to catch any fish then just throw out your bait and wait you might catch something.

These fish are going to go into the garden the help grow my tomatoes . They make great fertilizer and the trout are not put back into the lake for the birds to eat.