Lake Almanor, 12/23/11: A Very Brown Christmas

Disclaimer: There’s a lot of fish porn in this here post.  Is it excessive?  Did I take too many pictures of fish porn?  Yeah, probably.  But this is a Christmas report.  And Christmas is all about excess.  So I’m going to indulge a bit and post up a big slew of brown trout (and a bit of salmon!) pornography.  Tis the Season  .

Damn, this was the first weekend I’ve had in a long time where I actually stuck around home!  Hadn’t fished the local pond that is Almanor since October.  Things are getting mighty cold around here—40s in the day, down into the teens at night.  When I woke up this morning at 8am, it was 13 degrees outside.  Brutal!  So I waited around a little bit to let things warm up a few degrees before I loaded up the kayak and headed for the east side of the Peninsula.  Launched from Rec. 1 at 10:45am.  I was the only truck in the parking lot.

My destination was the A-Frame, about a mile north of Rec. 1.  A bunch of springs bubble up from the lake bottom here, and I did well there last January so I figured it’d be worth a shot.  I trolled a minicrawler behind a dodger en route to the A-Frame, and picked up a small brown and lost another fish.


Once I arrived at the A-Frame, I used two rods: one with a minicrawler suspended about 3-4 feet off the bottom, and the other with a 3 inch Berkley Gulp! Minnow on a ¼ ounce leadhead.  Surface temps were 39-40 degrees, so I wasn’t really sure of what depth I should fish.  I started out fishing in the 10-20 foot depths.  The shallower waters yielded some big post-spawn brown trout.



You could tell these were post-spawn fish because their bellies felt flat and flabby.  These fish weren’t too fun to catch.  They felt exhausted immediately after the hook-up.  So I moved out to deeper water (about 54 feet) to see what was poking around out there.  I hooked into some more browns in the deep stuff, but these guys were definitely NOT post-spawners!  They fought like champs and were a blast to catch.




Chromer?


My last fish of the day was a dinker Chinook.  Forget the size, I was stoked to see another species!


Overall, it was a steady pick of fish throughout the day.  I brought 8 browns to the boat and that dinky Chinook.  Worms and jigs seemed to be equally effective.  Fishing with two rods can be really cool when you get bites on both of them at the same time  .

Found this wakasagi (locally known as a pond smelt) floating at the surface.  This is the primary forage fish in Almanor.  Match your offering with something that looks like this, and you’re good to go!

Massive grebe infestation in this place!




Got off the water by 5pm, and I’m glad that I did!  By this point, my wet boots were freezing to the ground if I stopped moving for more than a few seconds.  Freaking COLD!  But these winter trips on Almanor are totally worth it.  You get practically the entire lake to yourself, there’s plenty of fish to be caught, and you don’t have to worry about keeping the fish in a cooler .

I hope everyone else’s holidays are as filled with browns as mine!

 

Ho Ho Ho and a very Merry Christmas to you Chris! Love the water today here too. Great looking fish man. Congrats! Hope your holiday season is filed with happiness and peace. C.

  Merry Christmas!

Thank you for  that, That is totally awesome!

You weren't kidding about the fish porn Chris. Please keep'em coming.

Jedmo

Thanks for a great report and wonderful fish porns Chris. Wishing you a very merry Christmas and happy New Year.

Always a pleasure to see fish porn from one the the top 5 lakes in Cal. 

Thank you for the wonderful Christmas gift...those pictures and report were great. Merry Christmas!

Merry Chris-ness!  This report and the pix are so average...  Good thing average for you is superstar for most.     Thanks for sharing, Bro, and have a great holiday season.  Looking forward to sharing some water time with you in the coming year - hopefully see you in May at the Cove.   

Happy holidays Chris, and thanks for this nice xmas present  My gf saw me read this post last night and saw the pictures of those trout a caught, and she wants me to get some Now, I gotta find my way up there!!

Chris, I wish you and your loved ones a wonderful Christmas as well as a successful and joyful New Year

Christmas came early for you, WTG chris, another great report. Happy Holidays.

Best Christmas gift ever for the fish porn lovers. Thanks for all those great shots and your report. Keep them coming...no pun intended! Merry Christmas to you and all of NCKA!
Don/DaBlazer

Thanks for the beautiful report, and a Merry Christmas to All!

Incredible! 

A very Merry Christmas to you.

gotta love them browns  Keep the fish porn coming