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View Full Version : Smitty vs Northern Cali - Fall 09 w/ Pics - Part II



Sierra_Smitty
11-14-2009, 03:46 PM
Continued.......


Day 6

My buddy Mike was insistent that Almanor was going to produce for us. After the butt kicking we’d received thus far, I wasn’t so sure but considered he’d come in 2nd in a smallie tournament at the lake just two weeks prior, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that the fact that we’d not had a chance to fish Almanor from a boat yet was the problem.

The weather report was crappy, although it was wrong again and it turned out to be a beautiful albeit brisk fall day. We fished hard all day long, again, for nothing. It was pretty brutal. We fished Fox Point, Rocky Point, the Peninsula, and Hamilton Branch for smallies and they seemingly laughed at us. My buddy was disappointed he couldn’t put us on fish but after talking with a few other guys out there who’d had similar results to us, it was clear that we were just a few weeks late plain and simple. The only fish to come to the boat was a 2lb rainbow….and FYI, the fish in Almanor fight just as hard as those in Butt Lake, which is a very good thing.

Nice 'bow from Almanor
http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/7/l_7f37895689aa4f25985dfd9e4aa47c11.jpg

We trailered the boat, unclear as to what we would do the following day….

As we were leaving the launching facility at Canyon Dam we came across two interesting guys with limits of trout….between the two of them, their stringer had to be close to 40lbs including some mammoth rainbows and three browns which must have averged 3lbs or better. Well…with the bass bite a no-go, maybe we should do what we know best and fish trout. Those fellas got their limits from shore on inflated crawlers and powerbait….not the kind of fishing I enjoy, but perhaps the Almanor fish would go for some jigs and powerworms.

Day 7

On Monday we decided to try Butt Lake again – this time troll it to see if we could get a big brown or one of the monster ‘bows to play….if that didn’t work, we’d try a lake the locals call Walker Lake to see if we could get a LMB to bite. I’ve caught my fair share of big ‘bows over the years but after doing a little more research on Butt Lake – it turns out that fish in the 10-15lb class aren’t uncommon…and I’m not talking about the farm raised kind, the kind that are stocked as 3/4lbers and grow to that size in the lake. Earlier in the week we’d talked to a few guys that we chasing trout (and were skunked by the way) but their neighbor at the campground had caught a 10-1/2lb rainbow the day before. DANG!!!!! The trick is usually to fish the inlet of the lake, which is a huge pipe and a powerhouse that brings water in from Almanor. Apparently this also brings in a ton of pond smelt and the fish basically go nuts when the thing is running….it’s like a buffet and the fish line up to get some. The pumphouse was never on when we went to fish it….the only time we saw it on was when we first checked out the lake and didn’t know any better.


How many fish we got Smitty?

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/103/l_66b93fa9cab54b1996530900aa73be8c.jpg


Anyhow….we trolled, we trolled, we trolled, we jigged, we threw powerworms……the fish just didn’t want to play. We saw two storms, wind, rain, snow, and sun over the past few days…maybe the fish were thrown off, or maybe the force just wasn’t with us. We did our best, which wasn’t enough. Morale was at an all time low after we couldn’t catch trout…..ouch.

We trailered the boat and went over to Walker Lake to see if anything was going on over there. Long story short….water was 46.7 degrees, it was 45 degrees outside and an extremely brisk north wind made fishing nearly impossible, let alone productive. Mike and I fished from the boat, Lane fished from shore for about two hours with no action. Didn’t expect much so it wasn’t too frustrating….


Day 8

On Tuesday we officially gave up on any species of bass and opted for trout. For those that don’t know, Almanor is famous for trout fishing…the number of big Eagle Lake rainbows and big Browns is ridiculous. The best reports as of late were from guys dunking bait in Geritol Cove and guys trolling at various places in the lake. One of the reports that was especially interesting mentioned lots of browns in 4-8lb class near the Pratville Jetties…..now that’s what I’m talking about! We started out trolling crawlers, dodger/crawler, needlefish and the good ‘ol countdown rapala – two rods on top, two rods on the downrigger. It was pretty slow fishing but the 50/50 silver gold sidekick dodger with the crawler got bit three times and I got one fish hooked on it….a less than spectacular rainbow.

Goofing off on Almanor

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/14/l_587e5508446d40ea890192a79f4f4ec2.jpg

Where be the fish? Thataway!!!!!
http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/7/l_4a8313840e864d228c74a96ed7a14df5.jpg

Sometime later in the morning we see a boat motor up and anchor in a spot which seemed a bit odd to me….middle of nowhere it seemed. On our next pass we witness this guy bring a big fish to the net…from our vantage point it looked like a brown and it was big, every bit of 4lbs I’d guess. On that same pass trolling, in the same area this guy was, I land a good 1.5lb or so Brownie on a crawler down 14ft on the downrigger. We decided that this guy knew something we didn’t know so we anchored up in an area somewhat close to him (not too close though, didn’t want to crowd him, especially on a lake that huge). We threw lures, jigs, powerworms, even soaked a crawler for nada. Not a bite. As we’re fishing we witness this guy catch his limit of Browns….biggest looked to be about 5lbs (which he later confirmed) and the smallest was maybe 3lbs, probably more like 4. We also saw a brown that was maybe 4lbs come clear out of the water and come within a foot or two of jumping in that guys boat….you can imagine the jokes that followed seeing that. We asked the guy what he was using and he gladly offered up that he was soaking cured roe….we jokingly asked if we could buy some from him and he said “no, but I’ll give you what I have left when I leave”. We had considered moving to another area of the lake but after he said that, we figured we’d just hang out til he’d limited out…which was like 15 minutes later. Sure enough, he came over and gave us a chunk of homemade cured roe. He showed us the setup he was using, what depth to fish, and why the fish were there. We listened astutely…and then moved over to his spot. Before he left he informed us that he’s a recently retired guide that fished professionally on that lake for 40 something years….it suddenly made sense…can’t feel bad about being out-fished by someone with that kind of experience on that lake. Nice guy…I wish he wasn’t retired because we would have probably booked a trip with him the next day hahahahha.

My Almanor brown...
http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/15/l_bfa16e65ac264983b04b890bf1e8bcb6.jpg


So…we’re at the guide’s spot…or as close as we could get to it…we’re soaking the guide’s home cured roe…..and guess what happens? Yup, Lane gets a 3.5lb Brownie – a personal best for him. I farmed one (you have no idea how pissed I was cuz it was HEAVY) and my buddy Mike did the same. The bite for us was not nearly as fast as it was for Randy (the guide) but it sure beat how we were doing before….and Lane’s fish pretty much made the entire day worth it. In fact it made up for the past few days actually. Fish were boiling everywhere….all of them browns and all of them in the 3-8lb class…no joke, they were jumping everywhere around the boat….but once the roe was gone, they didn’t even look at anything else, just continued flopping around on the surface rubbing it in our faces. It was very frustrating…..I’ve never been in the middle of a bunch of feeding fish like that and not been able to get any love….it was torture. We literally had trophy browns in every direction………insane.

Lane's PB brown...
http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/34/l_b68f51be583f40e8814ba920b236ed65.jpg

Well, after we’d run out of roe and what we had in the tackle box proved utterly ineffective – we called it day, but not before calling every tackle shop in the area to see if they carried cured roe of any kind. We found a few places in Chester that did so we loaded up and decided that the following day would be devoted to chasing trophy browns at Almanor.

Day 9

As a general rule, I hate soaking bait. Its boring. But after witnessing “the guide” do what he did to those browns….it was clearly the way to go. So we tried solid for 4 hours….cured roe…at the right spot.for nada. Just like the day before, the fish were rolling everywhere at “the spot” but they didn’t want anything. After giving it a solid effort, we moved to Geritol Cove….fish were clearly stacked up there as well as 3-5lb browns were jumping everywhere….and big ‘bows too. It was sick. Mike scored a good 2-1/2lb rainbow on some roe, but aside from that, nothing we threw did any good. About 2pm we gave up. The roe we bought obviously didn’t compare to what Randy had. The color was a bit different, the scent was a bit different but most importantly, Randy’s roe was trout roe, all the commercial stuff is salmon roe. Oh well….my buddy is going to be curing some Eagle Lake Trout roe next spring so we can hopefully do better next season.

Mike's 'bow
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/30/l_2ca74b99088f4f66a832daa07c1e9368.jpg

We had plenty of daylight yet so we decided to go back to Butt Lake to see if the pumphouse was on….it wasn’t, but we decided to fish it anyhow since we had no other viable options. Right off the bat we saw a solid 4lb brown cruising the shoreline….it was clear that there were fish there, whether or not they were feeding would be the trick. We tossed all the usual stuff, jigs, powerworms, rapalas, kastmasters, crawlers, roe….the only fish, and bite for that matter, was on what I call the Jig-Crawler-Bobber-Alper-combo….ya, it’s a mouthful, and sounds funny, but it kills at South Lake so I figured what the hell? Although the fish was a bit under 2lbs, the exciting part was that it was a land locked Chinook Salmon….cool huh? I’d seen pics of them and heard of people catching them in Almanor, but it was very unexpected to catch it in Butt Lake….and although I’d caught Kings before, this was the first landlocked specimen I’d ever caught which was very cool for me. They look exactly like the big boys, just mini-sized….neat stuff.

On the way home we hit round table pizza’s buffet to drown our sorrows in greasy food and beer. At this point we’d given up….if we fished the following day, we’d just be going through the motions…we’d see how we felt in the morning and go from there.


Day 10

The water at Eagle Lake was very low and thus boating is very sketchy….so we scratched that idea. Butt Lake had kicked our butt too bad to show our faces there again. The images of flopping 5lb browns was more than we could bare so we tried Almanor once more. On the way there we joked that “we’re going to not catch sooooo many fish today, it’s going to be awesome!!!!”. I bragged that I would not catch the most fish and that Lane and Mike would have to really try hard to not catch as many fish as I wouldn’t catch. Good times. The fishing sucked….I did get one fish on the roe….I was excited….it fought great….rolled 30ft from the boat and it looked to be a brown in the 3-4lb class….got to the boat and it was a lowly squawfish…..DANNNNNGGG!!!!!!!!! After that, we gave up and trolled. No bites. We figured if we weren’t going to be catching fish, at least we could be not catching smallies, so we rigged up for bass and tried that for an hour before giving up.

Hit vons and loaded up on groceries and kind beer…enjoyed a big steak dinner with taters and grilled veggies washed down with various exceptionally delicious brews for our last night of vacation. One thing I know I can always do is cook….even if I apparently lost my fishing mojo.


In Summation….

As always, we had a great time on our trip. We saw some new country, fished some new lakes and laughed til it hurt. We talked all kinds of smack on each other and enjoyed the camaraderie that you’d expect between brothers and friends and fellow fisherman. “We got owned” pretty much says it all when it comes to the fishing. The bright side of that is that I’m already aching for spring….I can’t wait for April 2010 when I return to the northern country and places like Butt Lake, Almanor and Antelope and I’m chomping at the bit to redeem myself and crush those dang bass and browns.

Cheers!!!!

Smitty



A few random pics...

Who can find the buck in this pic? This is right in my buddy's front yard about 40ft from his front door.
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/20/l_5d700187df0245e092b02085f35c64ec.jpg

My dream home (in the fall, winter & spring of course)
http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/108/l_743975b399cc484fb7ba6c648b60912e.jpg

tpfishnfool
11-15-2009, 07:24 AM
Awsome report and pics! Living the good 'er Great life huh?

Nessie Hunter
11-15-2009, 08:12 AM
Great adventure Jared.
Like a bus mans holiday.
Fishing resort owners fishing in their off time!!! :ROFL:

Beautiful Pics and super great read buddy, thanks...

Good to see Mike again (even in a pic)..
Whats up Mike, Miss ya dude!!!
Hows the house coming along, done with the addition yet??

Smitty, you look down right skinny man. Whats your secret??


I think I see the buck??? right side of pic at starting edge of brush line?? Kinda blurry??




.

TroutOnly
11-15-2009, 10:37 AM
THATS THE ONLY WAY TO SPEND YOURE OFF TIME JARED, MAN LANE JUST LOVES THEM BASS, WHERE WAS EVAN ,WAS YOURE MOM AND DAD UP AROND THE RESORT LATELY I WAS IN ASPENDELL WORKING THREE DAYS ,I FISHED INTAKE TWO AND YOURE RAMP FOR A COUPLE AFTERNOONS I THOUGHT I SAW YOURE MOM AND POPS ON THE SOUTH FORK ROAD, OR II WAS DRUNK AGAIN,,,,,,,,,t/o

CatchthatTrout
11-16-2009, 10:11 AM
Thanks Jared for such a great report and making feel like i was right there with you guys.

The pictures are awesome.
I know that feeling you're talking about, I can't wait to get back to Parcher's in 2010.

P.S. My Grandson Isaiah wants to know how's Brookie doing?

Sierra_Smitty
11-16-2009, 10:32 AM
THATS THE ONLY WAY TO SPEND YOURE OFF TIME JARED, MAN LANE JUST LOVES THEM BASS, WHERE WAS EVAN ,WAS YOURE MOM AND DAD UP AROND THE RESORT LATELY I WAS IN ASPENDELL WORKING THREE DAYS ,I FISHED INTAKE TWO AND YOURE RAMP FOR A COUPLE AFTERNOONS I THOUGHT I SAW YOURE MOM AND POPS ON THE SOUTH FORK ROAD, OR II WAS DRUNK AGAIN,,,,,,,,,t/o


Lane is definitely all about the bass these days....hahahaha.

I'm not sure if he's just not as adventurous as Lane and myself or what but Evan usually doesn't go on these trips with us....what a nerd huh?

My folks haven't been up at the resort for over a month.....how was the bite from the ramp?

Sierra_Smitty
11-16-2009, 10:33 AM
Thanks Jared for such a great report and making feel like i was right there with you guys.

The pictures are awesome.
I know that feeling you're talking about, I can't wait to get back to Parcher's in 2010.

P.S. My Grandson Isaiah wants to know how's Brookie doing?


Glad you liked the report Tony...it sure is pretty up there.

And you can tell Isaiah that Brookie is doing great....just as silly as ever.

Loco
11-17-2009, 11:17 PM
Great report. Sounds like a great trip. You guys really put your time in... but for some beautiful trout! Good going. Can't wait to bring my parents to Parchers next year. Have a great off season.

Beeracuda211
03-10-2010, 05:36 PM
Nice Report Smitty, cool pics.... :Big Grin: