Lake Almanor, 5/13/11: Always good to have a back-up plan

**WARNING: Brown trout are in this report.  Stay away if you've seen enough of those **

With some cold, nasty weather forecasted for the weekend (they're calling for 1-2 inches of snow...), I figured yesterday (Friday) would be my only chance to get a close-up look at some fish for a while.  That landlocked Chinook I caught two weeks ago was BOMB on the barbecue, and I wanted to see if I could get another one, or two .  I felt I'd have a good shot at catching more salmon at the place I caught my last one, so I went to the same area as I did two weeks ago: Lake Cove, on the East Shore.  This time I found a decent launch site just north of the Dorado Inn.  A little steep, but not too bad.  Launched at 8:30am to glassy conditions.

That is, glassy conditions with complimentary boat wakes .

There were a lot of powerboats trolling around the area, and they gave me a lot of funny looks as if they'd never seen someone fish from a kayak before.  Or maybe they were just jealous that I could troll around them at a fraction of the price they paid for their powerboat .  I trolled a white hoochie with a small piece of worm behind a dodger down in the 15 foot range, in water that ranged from 30 to 60 feet deep, for the next two hours.  Got nothin, nada, zip.  Saw a couple nets fly on the powerboats, but overall it was slow considering how many lines were out there (looked like every powerboat had at least 4 lines in the water).  I paddled south a short ways beyond Lake Cove, seeing if I could find anything hanging out along the steep, bouldery shoreline that drops to 30 feet within 15 feet from shore.  Still nothing.  But, I marked a couple fish on my depthfinder hugging the bottom, so I knew there were fish around.  Got sick of trolling, and a light north breeze began to blow, so I decided to drift along the shoreline with a 1/4 oz white paddletail jig to see if I could bring up one of those bottom-hugging fish.  At this point, I didn't care if they were salmon or not.  I just wanted to catch some fish!

The slight north breeze gave me a perfect drift to jig in 30-40 feet of water.  And on my first drift, I connected.  Fish fought like a tank!  She bulldogged deep for several minutes before I could even get her to color.  Gently slid the net under her (leaving her in the water) and admired a very nice brown that I'd estimate was 22-23 inches long.  Maybe add or subtract an inch.  All I know is that I couldn't cradle her out from me with one hand like I do with most fish for pictures!


Released her and started to set up another drift, until the wind immediately switched directions and started blowing HARD from the south.  I was drifting way too fast to stay down, so I reeled up and took shelter in a nearby cove for a shore lunch/siesta.  Had to kick out the waterfowl, sorry guys.


I saw some fish splashing on the surface in the cove here.  I'd heard that DFG had recently planted the lake, so I thought they might be the fresh planters eating sticks and junk off the surface.  I tied on a 1/4 oz gold Kastmaster and threw if from shore for about 30 minutes just to mess with the "new kids." Caught two cookie cutter planter rainbows about 10 inches apiece.  No pics because I'd left my camera in my PFD at the time.  But I think most of us have seen 10 inch planter rainbows at some point in our lives .

Looking south towards the dam.  The wind doesn't look like it was blowing too hard at this time, but it'd come in big gusts that would form whitecaps for 10 minutes before calming down a little.

With seemingly no end to the wind, I left the cove a little after 2pm wondering if I'd even be able to fish anymore.  I hardly even had to paddle as the wind pushed me north.  I was able to tuck in behind this point to get out of most of the whitecaps.

Water here was 30-40 feet deep, rocky shoreline...didn't seem too special for holding fish, but at least it was out of that damn wind.  I anchored up in 40 feet and set a nightcrawler at 35 feet, while I worked a white jig on my other rod.  Turned out there were some fish here!



I landed 4 browns on the anchor here from 3pm to 5pm, and missed a few other bites in between.  Most fish went for the worm, only got a couple bumps on the jig.  I kept 3 of these fish for the smoker.  The smaller guys in the 14-17 inch range are my favorite for smoking.

After I had my fill of browns, I pulled anchor and let the wind push me north.  I trailed a worm+dodger with a whole lotta weight in hopes of maybe finding that salmon, but no love.  When I reached the north side of Lake Cove, I stowed the troll gear and tied on a 3.5" Pins Minnow to search for some bass.  The wind acted like my very own  trolling motor, except that it was stuck on full throttle.  Got in some good casts though, as I found a small bass and had two other hits around Dorado Inn.

I don't have any bass hotspots on the East Shore yet (I mostly target bass on the Peninsula or the West Shore), so it felt pretty good catching a bass in an unfamiliar area.  Packed up and bailed by 8pm.

If the weather forecast holds true, I imagine the fishing's gonna take a hiatus up here for at least a few days.  Oh well, gives me time to prep those orange-fleshed browns for the smoker .

VERy Nice! Red meat, mmmmm

Chris, I never get tired seeing brown trout especially those coming out from Almanor  That brown in the 2nd pic is beautiful, wtg my brother and thanks for always sharing your outings with us all

Beautiful fish.  Thanks for the report.

Al

WTG Chris,
You have Almanor dialed in.
As always cool report/pics
Tad
 

Always a good read Clayman...beautiful meat on those fish, I bet they taste amazing!

Awesomeness, as usual.