Lake solano

Anyone know how the fishing at lake Solano is right now?  Looking to go out Thursday, just trying to determine where to go. 

If you go I'd like to hear your report. I don't think they stock it anymore and I've never heard anything good about the fishing there.

Fishing lake Solano is not the best.  Spent 4 hours out there, trolled around, and throwing a lure at whatever form of cover I could find.  If it looked like it would hold a fish, I hit it.  I tried different techniques, lures, anything I could think of.  Could even catch a fish on the fish finder.  After giving up I explored around about as far up Putah creek as I think I could and ran into a fly fisherman working some shallow rapids.  He managed to snag a trout after about an hour.

Long story short, wouldn't recommend fishing the lake.  But, it is a nice place to cruise around, take the kids and so on.  Water is clear and cold anywhere from 3' to 12' deep, usually in the 5-7' range.  Lots of wildlife.  Saw an otter, a couple turtles, many varieties of bird (including peacock).  Good family day trip or weekend camping with the kids.

Thanks for the report.  I haven't been to lake Solano for over 30 years when I took my kids there.  Sounds bout the same.

Once the water warms up it turns into a solid mass of green gunk. Whatever it is, algae or something, it becomes almost impossible to paddle.

Driven past it dozens of times and always wondered.  Thanks for the report

I went camping there a few times maybe 15 years ago. I caught a lot of brown and rainbow trout, they very obviously planted a lot of fish there at the time. Putah creek is a lot more productive further up closer to the dam, both for rainbows and pretty sizable browns. I've also heard there are smallmouth but never targeted them. I caught my personal best rainbow there in one of the shallow runs, measured 26". Beautiful naturalized/wild fish. Sorry to hear it hasn't been maintained.

Sorry to hear about the skunk.  Thanks for the report and pictures Vulcan800.

Fun, but challenging place to fly fish up in the rockier, faster-moving section closer to the dam. There are some really big fish in there, but you'll often sacrifice quantity for quality. Haven't fished Lake Solano proper in years though but used to do ok when the lake was stocked. Not sure if its still on the stocked list but I'd be surprised if it was. Thanks for the report and intel regardless !

No stocking anymore due to the lawsuit over planting non native species. Not sure, but I believe the whole area is now barbless catch and release.

No stocking anymore due to the lawsuit over planting non native species. Not sure, but I believe the whole area is now barbless catch and release.

Thank for the confirmation. I was pretty sure that the stocking program was no longer operating there. I believe that you're also right about barbless/artificial as well.