Tahoe 3/6/10

Decided it was time to end my cold streak of not posting a report.

Wife and I made arrangements to head up to Tahoe for the weekend.  Original plan was to fish Sat/Sun in the kayak while wife went skiing, then book a guided trip for Monday.

Unfortunately, the wife was unable to get Monday off, so I just fished Saturday from the yak.

My plan for Saturday morning was to hit the lake around 6, topline for a while then jig the midmorning-afternoon.

Late Friday night, she told me that her friends would be unable to drive her to the ski resort, so I would need to.    

We went to the Tahoe Sportsman in the morning to rent skis, then drove all the way to Squaw.  As I was driving on the west side of the lake, I could see that the wind was up and the wave action was pretty choppy.  Wanted to fish Rubicon Bay/Meeks Bay area, but nixed that watching the waves.  There would be no way I could keep on top of the fish in that wind.

I dropped my wife off at Squaw - finally around 10:30am.  I headed east around the lake, looking at Dollar, Cal Neva and Kings Beach.  The only one that looked doable was Kings, but I decided that Sand Harbor might be a better option as it is a bit sheltered from the stiff East wind.

I finally arrive to sand harbor around 11:15.  





got my gear ready and was on the water a little before noon.  I dropped my minnow trap in 18' of water right outside and went out to deeper water to scout.  I made a couple of funny looking marks in my FF, but nothing that looked like fish.  messed around with the FF for a while, then headed in to my trap after only a 25 minute soak.  Found a half dozen medium to small size minnows, loaded up and re-dropped it for later.

As I was cruising around checking for marks, I was still finding nothing on the FF. for a while there, I thought something was broken with it.  I grabbed a rod and started to tie on one of my jigs. The breeze was from 9-12 with occasional lulls.  After tying up, I looked at my FF and it was lit up in 130 feet of water.  marks all over the bottom.  I put a minnow on, dropped, and whack!  good hit, but nothing.  pulled up and did it again.  whack!  hook! blamo!  the first fish was a small one around 17", let him go at the boat as is my new ritual (release first fish of each species each year for karma).  pedaled back over the spot again and did it again.  This time a 17".





continued like this for a while, trying to keep on the spot, hook fish, drop minnows, etc but wasn't able to get anything else.  I had been over the spot for about an hour with plenty of hits.  

Out of minnows so I went back in to pick up my trap again.  Jackpot!  This time the trap had about 2 dozen medium to large size redsides.

headed back out to try and find my spot, but it was difficult as my GPS battery had died on me.  I spent the rest of the afternoon fighting the wind and chop and occasional snow flurries and was able to pick up two more.  

Here's what I was fishing in:



These pics were from when it was "calm" - my battery was low in the camera so i didn't want to waste too many shots in case I got a big fish I wanted to release.

I picked up the hail mary 19" mack and called it a day.  packed up


put the fish I kept in a bit of snow for a picture opportunity:


Here's what the bigger one looked like, still a dink:


I was able to pick up the wife around 5.  
Was out on the water approximately 4 hours.  Probably would have done better if I had my GPS working and the wind kept in one direction, but it became a whirling mess around 2:30pm blowing in 22 different directions.

We went out on sunday with less success but it was a much better weather day.  
It snowed over night so my kayak actually had snow stick to it for the first time:



Here's a pic from Sunday in the guided boat, this one was a 21" mack


My wife fighting a smaller grade fish with the help of our guide, Dennis of Eagle Point SLT.  I like to fish with Dennis since he's a little bit crazy and he primarily jigs.  None of that trolling stuff for me!  Ask him what he thinks of Gene St. Denis and Blue Ribbon Charters and you'll get an earful!


Good luck to all and to all a good night!

sounds like a fun adventure ben, congrats on the fish ben and thaks for the report, cameron

Sounds like a great day and grats on the mack!!   Ive been dying to get up there and fish from the yak.  Great description and thanks for posting!

Nice! For such a short period of OTW time, you did well for yourself. Just think how you it might have gone if you could have followed your original plan... What are you using to lure your minnows in. Bread, catfood or?

let him go at the boat as is my new ritual (release first fish of each species each year for karma).  
interesting ritual..flyaker does the  same thing...who got it from who?

I like to learn about those minnow traps.. sound like a cool way of making bait and I love fishing with live bait.. do you use it much in the delta?

Ben are you really selling your Hobies? I am trying to show Lawrence the light.
dave

Awesome Ben, nice to see a post from you in the reports! Sounds like a fun day on the water. Is the mack fishing any good late spring and summer?

Jeff

Nice! For such a short period of OTW time, you did well for yourself. Just think how you it might have gone if you could have followed your original plan... What are you using to lure your minnows in. Bread, catfood or?

dry dog food, cheap stuff.  my guide on sunday says he only uses purina.  guess you need the best   this time of year your traps will need to soak a little longer because the water is so cold that the scent doesn't disperse well.  traps in tahoe are generally set from 10-30' deep in rocky areas.

i tried the minnow trap once in the delta, zippo.  once at bass lake, one tiny bluegill.  i use the collapsible ones so i can store them on the yak easy.

yes i'm selling my adventure still.

i don't think either of got that ritual from each other, probably two geniuses (crazies) with the same revelation.

Awesome Ben, nice to see a post from you in the reports! Sounds like a fun day on the water. Is the mack fishing any good late spring and summer?

Jeff

yeah the mack fishing is pretty good all year long there.  i don't feel like trolling too deep as its more work than its worth, so i really only try to jig the lake.  my guide said that he thinks september - november is the best time of the year for big fish as they spawn during that period.   so far this year he said he's pretty much had all rats 17-25" and only one big fish on.  the big one we got last year (33") was in october off rubicon bay and filled with eggs  this year i'll probably go back once or twice

Im hoping to go out there this year and visit my cousin and do some fishing

Great job on the fish.  The weather kept me from going out on Saturday.  I'm hoping to go out this weekend.  Keeping an eye out on the weather, looks like Sunday maybe doable.

Nice report Ben. I saw the trout on Aoty and knew you would be posting soon. You really crammed a lot of fishing in a short time. Congrats.

yeah the one thing to note is i was using a 2oz jig. If I was to do it again i'd probably go to 3oz in the wind and that depth.  the fish were stacked up in maybe a 50 sq yard area so I had to be right on top of them or nothing.  I marked them at the dropoff from 130-170ft.

also marked some HUGE fish in 90 feet on a rockpile on my way in but the wife was waiting for me so I had no choice but to keep going.

Thanks for the intel BMB. I want to give it a go up there this year. Never tried up there. By the way you described the consentration of fish it sounded like a spring or something. Those can be fish magnets. Don't know if Tahoe has em tho. Alwasy love exploring something new.

Thanks for the report - Sand Harbor is a long time favorite spot for my family's summer adventures.   

Sounds like a fun day catching fish.  Thanks for the report Ben and looking forward to see the pictures.