NOTICE

Updated 2012 to 2018 fin trimming
Also, 2017 creel data was barely worth posting statement by DFW Paul Divine “With lower catch rates many anglers stayed on the water longer, past our survey hours, resulting in fewer anglers interviewed (on top of the already lower than normal fishing pressure)”.     

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Not sure but I don’t think the right hand knows what the left hand is doing at DFW when it comes to this lake. LoL Every other lake gets bigger fish planted than we get and we supply the first generation eggs.  LoL.  We certainly can’t believe what they say one minute and then the next.  This is proven via email and is why we only deal with the state in writing.  I am all for late fall, early winter planting and to receive the broodstock fish (which have different DFW markings than the planters fin trimming).  In winter, numbers of the pelicans are fewer and they aren’t accustomed to the Dec planting so they aren’t hanging out at the ramp by the hundreds. The pelicans thin out but don’t all leave until the lake basins ice over.  They begin to return right before the creeks flow, cold weather and snow storms don’t really deter them, it’s more about the easy food supply & they don’t care what they eat, just that they eat.  The tui chub have pretty much over run the lake, a thought DFW never considered in the severe reduction of planting and size.  Yet, DFW can’t determine how many tui chub there are, yet decrease the trout planting due to the biomass?  LoL.  When one can troll for 7 miles on this lake and keep catching chubs 2 to 4 at a time, apparently we have a problem.   Kinda faulty science, or perhaps no science.  We’ll see what 2020 brings. DFW is no longer testing for the low dissolved oxygen so we’ll have to see about adding some things to our arsenal so we’ll know if there’s a chance for a die off or detriment to the health of the trout in the next few years of low water and high algae. Lahontan has been very lacking up here, USFS LNF rarely goes out on the lake, doesn’t perform water tests even though doing so is in their management plan,  BLM hasn’t even bothered testing any water and provides the largest cattle impact in Troxel Bay.  Eagle Lake Guardians and some of our members and friends have really been pounding the state.  And we are holding them accountable as well as publicly exposing the issues.  We feel that the Water Board has been working on the same issue for over 40years and it’s actually time to stop rhetoric and do something. We aren’t going away, we aren’t accepting no for an answer.  Preliminary results indicate our phosphates are well above where they should be.  Fertilizing all the weed growth and algae blooms.  We are awaiting final results of the water board and their plan and decision.  Personally, we only care about Eagle Lake, the State is making this plight a statewide BS thing.  We are still giving them time, since the State doesn’t work like normal people.  When their time is up, we’ll do what needs to be done.

USFS holding back water from Pine Creek for grazing continues to be an additional part of the plight of Eagle Lake. 2019 grazing plan doesn’t appear to make much changes.  But, there just might be some positive changes coming.  Apparently, some may be a violation. :-0 imagine that? In part, to me, the increase in grazing the lake shores and old lake bottom is to blame for the massive algae increase and cloudy water/low DO below the normal depths for the trout.  USFS says no increases, but we’re out there seeing that the cattle come in well before time and stay well after the time they should be gone.  Apparently, so does the water board after testing, visualizing and having evidence collected. Thank 2 ranchers and USFS and BLM for killing this lake off slowly.  But, we are on it this year since no one else is.  Guardians are assisting the State Clean Water Team with water sample collections for testing for nutrients, surface pH, dissolved solids and surface conductivity.  However, the state is not releasing any results of our efforts.

In fall 2018, a big day was having 20-25 boats on the water so basically less than 100 people were catching fairly nice fish.  LoL.  Not the masses we once had  It was easy to count 600 boats on this lake and everyone of them having a good time catching their fish in the past.  That ended when people couldn’t launch at multiple ramps or catch fish.  I’ve talked to several long time Eagle Lake anglers that won’t spend the money to come up here anymore because fishing is better elsewhere.  Launching, catch-ability and water quality/levels have kept them away for over 5 years.  We have lost our winter fly fisherman to Pyramid.  Sad what DFW and USFS have done.   2017 size was down from 2016 as per DFW Creel, so DFW “increasing the size of fish” and catch ability wasn’t exactly the deal as per the data submitted as we always found the bigger fish and they didn’t run with the smaller fish.   Total lack of public trust now with DFW, USFS and BLM.  We’ll see if we can trust Lahontan Water Board, they may be coming around and we’ll be making sure they stay around.  I and Eagle Lake Guardians refuse any phone contact, we want everything in writing. This has taken well over 35 years and the time is now to heel Eagle Lake and return her to her prime.

Eagle Lake trout are planted in larger numbers everywhere but Eagle Lake.  GMO E.L. Trout that is.  The trout are sterilized at fertilization before being reared and planted in other lakes & reservoirs.  So you are basically catching and eating GMO fish in every other lake but this one.  LoL.  Triploids and Diploids are genetically modified not to reproduce. 

The low water levels and increased cattle grazing as well as increased duration has made for this green cloudy water, low dissolved oxygen and bacterial caution warnings in 2018.  Jeeze. Who wants to recreate in cow poop, massive algae and everything else that comes with it?  No one that we know of, however when the agencies don’t tell you what their findings are, basically because they don’t do the required testing from their own management plan.  You have no idea why your dog or kid got sick.  Usually, if a sickness occurs within 8 hours of swimming, it’s best to tell a doctor or veterinarian where you were and what you were doing before the sickness occurred.  Just a good thing to do so it doesn’t take months to cure.   Eagle Lake Guardians and the State water board are going to be watching intensely, all three basins of the lake, but the water board needs a greater professional presence and stop taking LNF word for it that all is ok.  LNF doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to honesty and reliability in many issues.  The people are now informed.

The grebes can dive very deep…100’s of feet if needed (we don’t have that depth here) but the grebes are more adaptable to cloudy water.  People don’t come here to catch trophy tui chubs in summer. 20-30chubs a day was common in 2017 and often 2 to 4 at a time, same with 2018 season.  This is because they school so densely and when you run lines through the school you can’t help but have all the lines go off. I covered 7 miles of lake and never ran out of chubs.  We don’t have the osprey we had in the past either and the eagles are also fewer.  Our resident eagles remain but migrants haven’t stayed long at all.  Loons also in small numbers.  2019 we have only a few hundred grebes, 2018 8000-10,000 and lots of babies.  We are concerned about the grebes for 2019.  Census in early August 2019 so we’ll have partial numbers. Between reduced planting, more than the fishing has been affected by DFW. 

We have many factors that could affect this lake for 2019 season.  From ash coming down Pine Creek, fire retardant and massive cow crap being covered with water….all may have an affect on the algae blooms this season, perhaps seasons to come.

Tui chubs are very easy to determine on your scope.  They school in three distinct groups and generally well below the depth that the trout need where there is more dissolved oxygen (often scoping below 40ft).  Adult spawner’s, the nursery (several years worth, generally protected by several sub adults), and young of the year.  I call them by stages.  Stage 1, 2 and 3.  Tui chubs don’t need the amount of dissolved oxygen that the trout do and are often much deeper in zones where the dissolved oxygen is too low to sustain the trout and stack up from top to bottom in many cases.  This is a common occurrence in summer when the lake stratifies. So far in 2018 we haven’t stratified significantly so the trout are going to be found in higher dissolved 02 ranges again this summer.  I would rather see single fish in a spread on my scope than masses and by watching that I have been doing well at catching trout.  No skunks in my boat but there have been days I have worked hard for them.  Getting out of the chubs has been the hard part.

2016 was the worst year in decades for blue/green algae clouding up the water and decreasing the dissolved oxygen in the lake. We did see a return of the blue/green algae in summer 2017 and once we cooled down in fall it cleared up a little.  We did start off clearer in 2017 with influx of 5ft of water than we have been for several years, but it didn’t last.  Lots of nutrients flow in every year, lots of nutrients from the shoreline grazing were covered up with water.  The lake remains much lower than normal yet the grazing numbers have not decreased, they increased.  I believe we will continue to see this phenomena for years to come unless we can instill changes ASAP.  After my cousins kids got sick after swimming in 2017, they don’t even want to swim in this lake anymore.  Even into December, 4 ft down was all we could see.  PS) I haven’t even let my dog swim in this lake since 2015.  Too far away from a vet and that it costs around $1000 to cure your dog from cyanobacteria IF you catch it soon enough.  Think what it would cost to cure your kid.  We have never seen the lake so cloudy and green in my 59 years, my folks 79 years, than we have the last 3 years. Perhaps that 150 years of grazing is rearing it’s ugly head.  This isn’t rocket science folks. Eagle Lake has been neglected by Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board and we’re calling them out on it.  Admission to that fact has been received.  They are trying to do good by Eagle Lake now.  Guardians will insist upon that keeping up.

There is no doubt fewer anglers on the lake and fewer visitors during the season.  People want to catch fish, not spend a lot of money for little to nothing.  This comes from the old timers who haven’t been here for several years and their reasons why. I have also been contacted by people who camp here and this year they are staying here but fishing other local lakes.  Several folks calling me this 2019 season wondering if it will be worth it to come up or should they go elsewhere.  I leave it up to them, but they haven’t caught fish the last few years and haven’t been happy with water conditions.  PS) I don’t eat the fish out of Almanor for several reasons.) If you follow my report and do what I do, you will catch fish here too.  The lake is fishing different that it has in the past, you’ll have to adapt to the changing conditions in the heat of the summer and search as we do for a small pod of trout here and there and the dissolved oxygen is the key, rather than the temperature.   Those of us that are spend more time on the water than most visitors, are use to this adaptation.   It will take years, maybe 5-10+ for this lake to recover under it’s current management by DFW and LNF.  Perhaps we need some fresh perspectives and people who actually see the lake from an anglers perspective before this lake returns to it’s former glory, or dies off completely. We’ve seen a lot of hype going on in 2019.  We don’t hype conditions, or fishing.  We believe that if you know what to expect you will deal with it rather than coming up with all these expectations and being disappointed and not return.  We aren’t in the business of making money so we have nothing to gain.  Consider your sources.  We offer the photos in our gallery so you can see what the lake and ramps look like. We want the lake back to prime just as much if not more than anyone.  We live and breathe here, 24/7 365.

For catching the trout, we simply had to adapt to the water conditions and loss of dissolved oxygen at levels the trout normally would be at.  For me, the trout stayed around 17 to 20ft deep where the water temperatures were 72F, just like 2016.  2018 I found more trout 12 to 18ft deep and as low as 24ft briefly before coming up to around 15ft for most all of the summer months. During the warmest water temps I found em 4-5ft deep. Much deeper & it’s going to be chubs in summer.  Of course, all levels got monster tui chubs, on just about every lure or fly made, due to their stacking nature in summer.  The chubs are probably going to pose a problem in the coming years. Miles of lake & tons of chubs.

The dissolved 02 has been dropping below 22ft in summer to levels that won’t sustain the trout for more than a few minutes so in spite of cooler temperatures deeper, the trout need the oxygen and are now regularly living in water temps above 70F during the summer months.  Either we support the cattle industry or the recreation, lake and fishery.  At this point, I don’t think they can co-exist until water levels are allowed to refill.  The lake has been suffering for years, Pine Creek for decades of decimation and diversion (86 water impounds in 40 miles of creek as per USFS documentation, & they don’t like having to give some of that back to the lake after decades of removing it from the watershed).  Along with Pine Creek, so went the native spawn and restoration is limited by funding (purposely?).  DFW finally left the gate open longer this year so more fish could pass. Flows in Pine Creek should remain a little longer which will help the fish upstream. Maybe this lake and OUR trout needs to take precedence for a few years.  We are on our way to that.   Just glad to see DFW following the plan just a little closer…not all the way, but closer.  We’ll see who gets notified when the brook trout are chemically killed in upper Pine Creek and if any local wells are tested for any chemical contamination considering that they all say they are improving the ground water by impounding water for cattle.   Lake Davis? Noted that Pine Creek water flows underground? Well’s? We’ll see. And this year we have the water board on board as well as a team of micro biologists waiting.

5 Dot moved their cattle back to the lake shore near the old Stones Ranch and highway 139 this 2018 winter.   Wave surge from winds just pull that crap and urine right back to the lake water.   We put the pressure on em and they were briefly moved out.  However, they were moved back in in March…back out after the water board order.  30 days to respond, 60 days to comply.  I do believe that it has a lot to do with our blue green algae problem in summer the last few years, water board confirms.   We have some help exposing this problem in the media outside the immediate area.  The water up in Troxel Bay is very ugly, brackish, green and smelly.  People reported they had to fence off their property at Stones just to keep the cows out of their yards.  Fish haven’t been up there for years.  Over the last few years of drought, masses of trout haven’t moved up much above the Youth Camp and the north side of Pelican Pt, even in fall to late fall.  The cattle were west of Spalding Road, halfmoon bay and all along 139 and from Christie to Spalding along the west side.  But they aren’t supposed to be at the north ends of the lake trampling the lake shore or lake bottom, or to be crapping in the lake all summer/fall/winter.  This rule has been neglected and not enforced for many years.  Public awareness is critical to this enforcement as the agencies only care about one thing….and that hasn’t appeared to be the lake or fishery which is the livelihood of  Lassen County.  If grazing helped prevent catastrophic wildfires it certainly didn’t help Spalding or Brockman Lava Beds (or any other heavily grazed areas) out during the Whaleback Fire now did it?