Lake Almanor, 8/23/11: the home waters beckoned

Alright, back to the local scene!  I admit that I’ve hardly touched my home waters of Lake Almanor since September.  Honestly, I’ve been too preoccupied with the Trinity River and its anadromous jazz (it’s been damn good over there this year BTW) to pay much attention to any landlocked stuff.  But I had a lot of free time today after doing a ton of woodcutting the previous two days, so I felt it necessary to get the kayak in the water and see what the “home” fish were up to.  I felt somewhat at a disadvantage since I had no idea what was happening out there, but whatever.  I just wanted to go paddle and maybe catch a fish or two.  I launched from Rec 1 (east side of the peninsula) around 8:30am and paddled my way north.  The springs surrounding the A-Frame were my destination.


You can hardly even see the A-Frame through the trees, but it’s used as a landmark for locating a bunch of springs bubbling up from the lake bottom in this area.  Surface temps were 58-60 degrees F, visibility of about 8 feet, and my depthfinder was marking a ton of baitfish in the 10-30 foot depth range.  I started drifting and jigging a Berkley Gulp! Minnow on a 1/4oz leadhead in 30-40 feet of water.  Connected almost immediately on a little brown.  Right on, skunk-buster!

Kept fishing around the A-Frame for a while longer for a couple missed bites, but nothing was sticking.  The fish obviously weren’t thick around here.  I slowly started paddling back south towards Rec 1, hoping to find some concentrations of baitfish and try jigging around them.  About a ¼ mile south, I found a BIG school of pond smelt in about 30 feet of water.

Immediately stopped and dropped my jig down.  Within 30 seconds, I get a light tap and slam the hook on a much nicer brown.

The rest of the morning/early afternoon panned out like this: once I couldn’t see any baitfish on my depthfinder, I’d slowly paddle around until I was on them again.  Drop down, jig, hook up, repeat.  All browns of varying sizes.



I missed a LOT of bites today.  I’m thinking the fish were short-striking the jig.  Not that it bothered me too much, because I was hooking up enough to keep myself entertained.  A bunch of grebes came in and harassed the baitfish for a while.

By 2pm, the bite had slowed tremendously.  But I kept at it because I knew there were still fish hanging around.  At 2:45pm, I get a bite in about 35 feet of water, set on it, and my reel goes ZZZZZZ!  Oh crap, this is a good one!  This fish towed me around for about 7-8 minutes while I just hung on for the ride.  Eventually, I was able to work her up from the depths and slid her into the net.  It was a beast!


I didn’t take any measurements, but I’d guess this big girl was around 25-26 inches long, pushing 7 pounds at least.  Heck, maybe even heavier.  It was difficult getting any decent shots of her with a camera in one hand and this beast of a brown in the other, but I got a few cool ones before she slid from my hand into the green.





I probably could’ve just quit fishing after that fish, since the following couple hours were sloooow, save for a 3 pound or so brown I found while waiting for the boat launch to clear near Rec 1.  In total, I brought 8 browns to the boat today.  Would’ve been cool to see some other species, but hey, these browns are a blast anyway!

Ah, it’s good to see those Almanor fish are still their badass selves.  It’d been way too long!

Sounds like you had a great day, That was definetly a "girthy" one there!!!!

Holy moly, good stuff there!!!

I spent the weekend hunting browns also but my biggest got away - TWICE!

Great fish, Chris.  Loved the photos as always.   

wow, another great report, thanks for sharing another great  outing from your home water, loved that pic of the release with just the fish, paddle and your hand, cameron

Beautiful Browns - great report Chris - thanks!

Very cool Chris!! You are very talented with rod and camera.............

Sweet pics! That brown had some nice looking teeth.
Next spring I'm going to have to spent a few days up there. Thanks Clayman

Great report and pics. as usual Chris, nice brown !, thanks for sharing.

Gotta love those Germans 

Beautiful Browns!!!

You are VERY good at what you post.....VERY GOOD!! thanks!

Bro; sick as always and the pics are just awsome, especially considering the one handed technique. Congrats on the little piggy too!

awesome!  I love that place!!

thanks

Always a pleasure, thanks Chris!