9/16/06 - Exploratory Lake Sonoma

Never fished Lake Sonoma before, so I figured it was time for me to get out there and try to figure out how to hook some of the landlocked steelhead.  Launched at day break and the wind was up in the main body of the lake so I drop shotted and threw crankbaits in the marina cove for a while for nothing. 

Once the wind died down, I tried out my trolling options in search of some trout.  Started out with a white Jay Fair trollling fly on lead core line... had 4 colors out (20 feet) and trolled out the cove and across the dam for nada.  Then I trolled some shad raps for a while and then I tried drop shotting and throwing rat'l traps along the shore to the north of the dam.  Nothing.

Finally, I figured I needed to get deeper, so I put on a 2 oz banana trolling sinker with a little black and silver needle fish and figure I had it down to 40 feet or so.  Had two hookups with that method, losing both fish at the boat... both trout.  The second one was decent size and really went ballistic once it saw the boat and shook the hook. 

The fish were marking at 40 foot depth and the 70 foot contour along the dam seemed to show the most marks and that's where my hookups came from.  Unfortunatly, by the time I figured out how to get my line that deep, the ski boats were coming out in force so it probably wasn't the best of circumstances. 

Nice day anyway... I definitely plan to get back up there in October / November when the lake turns over and the fish come up to the top.  Those landlocked steelhead are pretty feisty.  I also figured out that I don't really have any rods that are ideal for this kind of fishing, so yet another great excuse to build some more rods... yes!

Erik

Nice report Erik. Glad you figured it out. I'll mark down to visit there when the lake turns over and the Steelhead surface. Could be great fun.

Glad you hooked up Erik, I hit it every spring and fall. Awesome fish when they are on the surface and hit your lure half the time they are 6' in the air before you grab your rod.

what rod did you use?

the ultralight rod does't work for the 2oz banana sinker, eh?

but the long ultralight rod is the best for keeping them hooked when they are near the boat.

maybe time to try a downrigger setup so you can use your ultralight rod?

kickfish and some other guy use downriggers to good advantage on lexington.

I have tried it a couple times but have not caught fish yet, however I think it is the right thing for lakes.

take a look at the ultralight seps downrigger releases.

I don't really have a true ultralight for myself... my 8'3" rod is a light action steelhead rod and I fish it with 6# line, but it has enough backbone to work stripers over... still a bit too fast of action for trout.  I had it rigged up for my drop shotting rod anyway, so I was using other rods for trolling. 

I'm going to build a couple of moderate/slow action rods for this kind of fishing, one designed for lead core and one designed for basic trolling or possibly downrigger. 

The downrigger would probably be the way to go... not sure if I'll go there or not though. 

Check this Sep's Simply Trollling release out ... allows you to lower your lure down the downrigger line without ever having to crank the downrigger back up.  Pretty slick.  Looks like probably the way to go for kayak downrigging.

http://seps.web.aplus.net/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=43000&Category_Code=STDU