Sugar pine Lake

       I went to Sugar Pine lake on Sunday to catch some trout and small mouth.  got out on the water and turned on the fish finder to see where the fish were holding, and the trout seemed to be on the surface and hanging in a thurmocline at about 14 feet.  I hooked on a needle fish on one pole and a brown grub behind a watermelon side-kick dodger on the other pole.  After about 10 min i hooked about an 11inch trout at 14 feet with the grub.  I trolled for another hour without a single hit, and i tried all kinds of stuff.  Needlefish, flatfish, etc.  Getting tired of that i took out the fly rod since i noticed fish hitting the surface.  At first really nothing then noticed my fly was a little dark, so i changed to a light tank elk hair cadis and started catching fish after fish.  Within about 40 feet of the shore all i caught were small mouth, and when i moved out about 10 feet futher started cathing rainbows.  My buddies came out with me in the canoe and didn't catch a single fish all day, until about 4 o clock, my freind Clayton pulled in a 16 inch rainbow that was extremely fat.  When i asked what he was using he pulled up about 5 feet of flashers  , those ones with like 9 blades, with a little      1 1/2 inch gold needlefish.  he decided to keep it, and when he cleaned it the stomach was full of bugs.  I started fishing with one of those storm softbait lures with the weighted head and the hook out of the back, in a clear and black back.  I was about 30 feet out and casted towards the shore, jigging it back in for small mouth.  that was productive with 4 small mouth. 

All in all i used about 30 different lures, all in different colors, 15 different dodgers, and pulled in one trout on it,  trollong for about 3 hours
 

total  about 12 rainbows  and 15 smallmouth

im going to have to try and figure out a way to fish this lake without a fly rod because my buddies didn't have nearly as good of a day as i did

thanks,
mike

sorry about no pics the camera was tweaking out, ill try and post pictures tomorrow

Sounds like you had a great day catching fish!  Thanks for the report Mike and looking forward to see the pictures.

  Nobody can accuse of being lazy!  That is incredible that you used that much tackle, but I hear that trout can be very finiky!  Wish you had a camera, would love to see that lake! 

Cool to see a report from you Futhel.  Is that a trout bait in your avitar with the bass?  Way to fish hard. 

Thats alot of retying! Thanks for the report! Looking foreward to pics...

Nice job working the lake, futhel. Thanks for the report. 

in my pic thats a baby bass swim bait. most lakes i fish there is usually something the fish click into, but man it was all flies.  plus i was even using my downrigger and fishfinder so i was right on the fish

What baby bass swim bait is it?  In small lakes or ponds I use the castaic bluegill.  In bigger lakes I like throwing a bbz trout or huddleston. 

the swimbait is a mattlure baby bass series of swimbaits.

       I went to Sugar Pine lake on Sunday to catch some trout and small mouth.  got out on the water and turned on the fish finder to see where the fish were holding, and the trout seemed to be on the surface and hanging in a thurmocline at about 14 feet.  I hooked on a needle fish on one pole and a brown grub behind a watermelon side-kick dodger on the other pole.  After about 10 min i hooked about an 11inch trout at 14 feet with the grub.  I trolled for another hour without a single hit, and i tried all kinds of stuff.  Needlefish, flatfish, etc.  Getting tired of that i took out the fly rod since i noticed fish hitting the surface.  At first really nothing then noticed my fly was a little dark, so i changed to a light tank elk hair cadis and started catching fish after fish.  Within about 40 feet of the shore all i caught were small mouth, and when i moved out about 10 feet futher started cathing rainbows.  My buddies came out with me in the canoe and didn't catch a single fish all day, until about 4 o clock, my freind Clayton pulled in a 16 inch rainbow that was extremely fat.  When i asked what he was using he pulled up about 5 feet of flashers  , those ones with like 9 blades, with a little      1 1/2 inch gold needlefish.  he decided to keep it, and when he cleaned it the stomach was full of bugs.  I started fishing with one of those storm softbait lures with the weighted head and the hook out of the back, in a clear and black back.  I was about 30 feet out and casted towards the shore, jigging it back in for small mouth.  that was productive with 4 small mouth. 

All in all i used about 30 different lures, all in different colors, 15 different dodgers, and pulled in one trout on it,  trollong for about 3 hours
 

total  about 12 rainbows  and 15 smallmouth

im going to have to try and figure out a way to fish this lake without a fly rod because my buddies didn't have nearly as good of a day as i did

thanks,
mike

sorry about no pics the camera was tweaking out, ill try and post pictures tomorrow

Look like you found the right pattern for the trout. I can't remember when the last time i had so much fun with a flyrod.
Nice report!

Thanks for sharing.

Alex 

very cool nice start of winter report. Gonna be doing some winter fishing this year in the lakes.

Now that is some real ACTION!!   Great details on depth and lures.....stuff what makes an EXCELLENT REPORT(evenWITHOUTpictures )

Keep on it!!