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HERE IS YOUR CHANCE TO HELP GET THINGS MOVING

Getting prepared for winter isn’t one of my favorite things to do but it is necessary so I can spend Nov and Dec fishing and come home to a warm fire.  Just a bit more left to do.

Trolling:  The water temps chilling down a bit more! 48F to 50F on the west side, 55F in the middle, 53-55F on the east side.  50-53F above Slough Pt. We are full on for fall now!  We’ve been doing well using toplines and trolling flies.  Some days we are working harder than others.  But, all in all it’s been fairly good throughout the Oct full moon.  Fish are pretty scattered right now.  Depending on the location we’ve been successful using florescent orange, fiery brown and tui chub minnow.  Occasionally “nightmare” wooly bugger has been bit when the other colors are off for that day.  Everything we’ve caught has been toplining or using 1 color of leadcore in the water with 60ft of leader (this allows for sharp turns without hanging up all the lines). If you don’t have a topline, run 100ft of leader off your leadcore and drop one color in the water. Toplines running around 145ft. We’ve done quite well using this method for the last few weeks.  Can you run flies off a down rigger?  Yes you can, but it’s tough dancing with the rock piles and hugging the contour of the bottom without a topline set up.  The fly line follows every turn of the boat without jutting off at an angle.  It can sweep, drop, pull up and mend itself just by speed alone. I’ll only run toplines or leadcores.

We have had no chubs on the surface rods at all.  Get down deep and absolutely there are chubs.  We have been working the rock piles, 5 to 12 ft deep as well as toplining deeper waters.  I have also toplined off Pikes Pt near the marina, the jetty and out in the middle of the south basin, west side and upper north end of the south basin.  Trolling flies on toplines with fiery rust, orange, tui chub and original vintage J Fair special trolling flies got the most action.   Good time to add chartreuse/pearl and yellow to the mix to cut the cloudier water, more so if we see a cloud cover in the morning…and it looks like we’ll see some of that here and there through Saturday.

The west side was pretty clean this week.  Some sporadic surface algae off Shrimp Island.

In spite of weather reports indicating our low temps are in the 30’s, that hasn’t been the case, we’re seeing low to mid 20’s on a regular basis. 

Won’t hurt to use an attractant either but be sure it is fresh and not old.  Just because it stinks, doesn’t mean it smells right to the fish.

The west side is still holding a few trout, for us in close and tight to the rocks and early. But weed check often.  We still caught some fish off Pikes Pt/Pikes Cove and off the Jetty after the minnows there.  Every thing we’ve caught has been toplining Jay Fair toplines.  The east side is also holding trout.  Still banging out a few off the south side of Pelican and at the Youth Camp/Biology Station channels and rock piles. Everything has been on top for us. I always troll in circles to find the best direction for the fish as well as changing the depth and speed of the lures.  

If you’re getting strikes, losing fish my advice is to sharpen your hooks.  I sharpen hooks on lures and flies right out of the package and after every fish or two landed.  I can’t stress enough about having sharp hooks on short striking fish. We’ve also been holding them with the boat rather than grabbing the rod right away.  That’s gotten more fish to the boat. 

Most of the trout have been between 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 lbs with a couple over 4lbs and some under 2 lbs.   I switch lures on one rod between bites, but I don’t generally take out what has worked and by doing so, it’s pretty much the one that will get the fish in the boat once they come on again. In fall, the bite might taper a bit but these fish are fattening up for winter so they eat all day.  My trolling speed that triggered the strikes was 2.2 to 2.8mph this week.

Locations:   From The Springs to Eagle’s Nest has some fish...mostly outside the ledge but it changes daily, keep lines on top.  Miners Pt was holding some scattered trout.  Pikes Pt has scattered trout too as does just out the jetty and head towards Camp Ron McD.  I generally let lines out over 35ft of water then work in circles, in close and tight when shore fishermen aren’t throwing out bobber’s.  Weeds can shift so check it out, if its too bad, move on, shifting wind directions can clean things up one day and mess em up the next.  On the east side I’ve had the most success  from The Springs north to Eagle’s Nest. The bay out from Camp Ronald McDonald is also holding some trout.  Up north the Youth Camp/Biology station areas are still providing some action.  The furthest north I have had fish is about 1/4 mile north of the tip of Pelican Pt but it is very weedy.

From shore: The standards are basic night crawlers, power bait or jigs under bobber’s. Even meal worms can entice these trout. For jigs, typically small ones in olive, cinnamon, orange or brown. Casting lures, spinners and spoons through the massive schools of minnows can be deadly (generally black-yellow dot or yellow-black or red dot).  Casting red/nickel  or red/gold Cast Masters has also been a good go to.   The Jetty and Pikes Pt has been the best shore fishing the last couple weeks.  Youth Camp/Biology Station has been up and down but mostly a matter of timing.  Christie has been slow but that will change soon.  Wildcat has been slow as well.

There are only a few places along the shoreline where one can cast to water deeper than 6-8ft deep but they do move around, in and out to the depths as well as down for a rest.  The deepest places accessible from shore are:  The point bordering the north side of Pikes Cove, which is the most southeastern point of Pikes Pt (access from Marina low water ramp parking area).  There’s a nice weed bed on the bottom there.  The ledge north of Camp Ronald McDonald that runs from about 1/2 mile north of Camp Ron McD to beyond The Springs (below the water tower).  The ledge is still accessible with a good cast from shore due to the lake remaining relatively low.  One can also traverse the steep bank below the water tank. Getting down isn’t that hard, getting back up is a bit more of a challenge.   The deepest water at Christie is from the rocky point northwest of the parking area, it’s a quick drop off the end of the rocks to 24-27ft of water.  I would walk out and cast as far as possible from shore. On either side you can reach about 12ft of water.  Keep an eye on the minnows, pelicans and grebes.

Fly Fishing:  The aquatics are there for the taking.  But wading hasn’t provided for a long successful bite.  Be prepared to access outer rock piles with a tube or kayak.  Shrimp larva has been more prolific this season and has continued to be the food of choice for the fish we’ve been catching.    It also depends on time of day and location.  Right now the fish have come in close, but continue to move out of reach from wading.  Still need to be able to access that 10-20ft ledge by mid morning.  Be prepared with a sink tip or sinking line though so you can easily reach 5 to 7 ft deep.  Consider a small minnow pattern, orange scuds, fiery brown and black bloody leeches too.  Remember that as water temps cool down to the 50’s and lower, the shrimp and scuds begin to turn orange or brassy orange for adult shrimp.  Orange is quite a natural color for this lake. 

Always prepare for the worst & accept the best regarding the weather.  Cooler one day, warmer the next.  Come prepared for cool mornings now. It will start getting real cold before too long.   We are seeing yellow jackets and wasps increase and they aren’t happy with cold mornings…out prolifically during the day foraging.  If you’re allergic, be sure you have your medication with you.  Reptiles are still active.

TUI CHUB INSIGHTS:   The chubs scope differently than the trout do and are pretty easy to determine on your screen.  Generally, they stack up and are very thick in zones of the lake that have dissolved oxygen levels too low to support trout.  When spawning in the depths in early summer, they can also form a 5ft thick layer just above the bottom in 30-40+ft of water.  Mostly, any large stacked school  or blob of fish that the top is at 7ft and the bottom is at 47f+t are NOT trout. We caught some chubs 22″ long in 2016 and again in late July 2017, my biggest in 2018 has been 21″, 2019 20″.  Huge monsters for chubs so they are doing very well….maybe too well considering the biomass and fewer trout being planted.  With a little more spawning habitat back for the chubs up north, we saw another prolific hatch of chubs up in the northern basins this year.  I believe their population density is going to bite us in the ass if it hasn’t already.  I see this becoming a very bad problem for this lake now.  People don’t come here to catch trophy tui chubs.  Catching them will become very prolific in late July and August and quite possibly through Sept. This has happened again 2019. They resist arrest quite well, but you know when you have a chub over a trout pretty quickly. Chub dive deep and fight you under the boat, are tail thusters opposed to head shakers.  Chubs don’t stay on top and cross from side to side, stay pretty much in the line straight behind the boat.  Trout will stay out and up higher, run side to side, charge the boat after figuring out that peeling out line isn’t working.  Then, once at the boat, the battle really begins.

 

Tui chubs are in 3 separate and distinct schools.  Here’s how I classify them.  Stage 1: Adult spawner’s. We have two schools.  One school spawns in the northern basins and the other doesn’t leave the south basin.  During the dry years up north, we had one year of lower spawning rates due to habitat loss & the northern spawner’s not knowing where to go to spawn in the south basin.  But the next year they had it figured out and our tui chub spawn took off with a vengeance.  We had little to no grebe nesting 2011-2016 so the tui chubs had very few predators to keep the young of the year in check for 4+ years.  These are now all in stage 2 juveniles and rarely targeted by trout, too large for a grebe and now very wary to pelicans.  Stage 2: The nursery or juvenile population. (Several years worth that are protected by sub adults I call guardians).  I have seen these “guardians” rush out of the school and slam a passing trout like a linebacker.  Which is pretty brazen for a fish with no teeth, little to nothing protecting their brain, and half the size.  But numbers count and generally there is more than one guardian rushing the trout.  Stage 3: Young of the year.  This is what the trout target.  When the adults spawn they can form a thick line protecting the beds before they disperse.  Once the young of the year complete the hatching cycle (which can last through August/September and begin in May) we can see the schools of stage 1 and 2 form walls protecting the young of the year minnows.  Generally we will see the minnows in closer to the shoreline, the nursery juveniles outside of the young of the year and the adult spawner’s outside of the nursery.  It really is something to see.  I call it “walling up” and it generally begins around late August/Sept just as there is a hint of fall in the air.  It appears to me that the walling up is the chubs way of protecting their species from the trout.  If we have chubs in those numbers, the trout either find their way into the young of the year schools, or they move on to a different food source until the chubs disperse and relax. We can literally smell the tui chubs when near massive numbers.  As they transpire, they release a gas, especially the young of the year when in dense schools.  So follow your nose come late summer and fall.  Look for pelicans in large groups as well as a boiling on the surface.  Out over the depths, the trout push the minnows up to within reach of the pelicans.  So we often follow the birds when we see that.  2017 and 2018, the pelicans are following us.

 

When fishing, I try to avoid the stacking adult tui chub as well as the nursery chub.  Generally the trout will be further away from the chubs or outside and above the chub school.  If you’re in the chubs, that’s all you’re going to catch.  Easy to determine on your line. Personally, I don’t really care what you do with them, they provide food for the trout for winter, but I think we need more trout to keep the young of the year in check. Once in the juvenile grouping, the trout don’t generally even attempt to eat them.  We have a lot of chubs.  You’ll see what I mean pretty soon.  2017 and 2018 I could troll 7 miles one direction and catch chubs 4 at a time.  A waste of time.  We never used to catch them trolling, only on bait under bobbers.  So when trolling and catching tui chub 4 at a time? Can’t drag a line for more than a few minutes before a chub is on? Can’t get 4 lines in the water before a chub takes the first two in the water?  What does that tell you? LoL.  We also have Tahoe suckers (grayish with darker back, small nodes on the lower fins).  Seasonally they can be modeled green back with reddish stripe, late summer they can be a little more on the yellowish green back.  A treasure and rarely seen by anglers.   Please release these in good condition if you catch them as their numbers are low and they are a special species to this lake that don’t complete with the trout. Speckled dace (a minnow that only grows up to remain a minnow).   Generally seen taking harbor near the transom of an anchored boat and various sizes from small to 1- 1 1/2 inches at most.  Mostly in family units from smaller to larger and 50-100+ individuals is a big bunch. 

Various zoo-plankton’s and other microscopic food sources have also become very prolific to the point of fowling lines and down rigger’s…and when thick enough, can plug jet pumps.   The biggest change in the fishing occurred in less than one year.  From catching and releasing tons (20-40+ per day) of 2-3+ lb fish to being lucky to get one or two was a dramatic shift in Eagle Lake in less than one year.  Finding trout in the middle of summer at 17 to 20ft deep at 73F water temps is pretty unnatural but that’s where they were in 2016-2018 when surface temps were above 70F.  We may have seen some 4+lb fish but their numbers being caught were few and far between…lots of 2 to 3 ½ lbs as usual.  This fall we have seen a handful over 5lb but on average, be happy with a 3 1/2lb.   Over 55 years of eating these trout, the best quality of meat comes from a 2-3lb trout.  Meat of the bigger trout of 4 +lbs is generally grainy, mealy and softer.  Everyone wants to catch a big fish, but the quality of the meat is not nearly as good as smaller fish.  I rarely keep a fish over 4lbs for eating myself unless it’s damaged or water quality issues prevent me from wanting to release it.  To me, it is a waste if it doesn’t eat as good as a smaller fish but I will smoke it.  In warm water months, it’s not unusual to see meat that’s softer in a few fish.  Note that under new regulations, one can’t fillet fish on the boat even if bringing back all the carcasses and guts to throw away to avoid long waits at the fish cleaning sink.  I’ve been pulling my boat out and filleting in the boat in the parking lot when lines are long or simply come home to clean em.  Bypass so to speak. By the way, creel census is completely volunteer.  One doesn’t HAVE to have their fish measured or weighed.