They rolled the Dice one too many times at Lake Wohlford!
Let me explain myself on my title to this report. This is the 4th season I fished Lake Wohlford and the 3rd fish hatchery they used since I've been fishing there. The first year I fished there they used Nebraska Tail Walker trout. Nice hard fighting fish and a predictable behavior pattern. They would be stocked at the boat ramp, linger a couple of day's there and then head for the shallows in the East end of the lake. The next year they switched over to Caleveras trout and their behavior pattern was similar except for one thing. They loved to eat Fly's! Which brought out the fly fishing community in force! Had they quit there, Lake Wohlford would be the Best trout fishery (other then those private lakes) in the Southern part of the state. But like so many Gamblers, they don't know when to quit! Instead they let it ride one more time and switched hatchery's again! This time they went with the Mount Lassen hatchery. (why are they doing this you might be wondering) Their doing it for one simple reason, "PRICE!" The price per pound of trout keeps going up and instead of stocking less fish like the San Bernadino County parks do now. They keep shopping for the lowest bidder! As a side note, remember Jess Ranch? They use to have a darn good fishery for their day users. Not any more because they make so much more money selling their fish to the highest bidder. They just don't care about their day fishermen any more. It's not personal it's business! Lol
If anyone was paying attention in the last 3 years, I was writing a lot of fish reports about Lake Wohlford. (I was even encouraging people to go there!) With the new hatchery their using, I would say the fishing is Half as good as it was the last 3 years! Why you might be wondering???? These Mount Lassen fish are mentally challenged! Lol Their not behaving in the same predictable behavior of the other hatchery fish. I was talking to the Manager of ___ __ tackle who fishes their himself. He said, the fish head for the deep water first and the re appear any where and every where! That's good to know! Lol So their is no really good way to really target these things. (except to work the lake til you find them!) Dropping an anchor in some random spot, is not the way to do it! (I'll get to more then that in a minute!) Just to give you a comparison of fishing this year to last year. We went 5 times both years in the same time period. Last year we were a perfect 5 for 5 in boat limits for all passengers. This year totals are 15, 3, 6, 7 and 8! (most of the time we are high boat on the lake) A couple of more things about these mentally challenged trout from Mount Lassen. They won't always eat the bait! Instead they will only eat the bait about half the time! They taste it a little and spit it out and won't eat it! Also about 1/3 of them won't even fight, you just surf them in! See why I call them mentally challenged trout?
On to the Fishing!
We actually went 2 weeks in a row. (last one being 2/8) So I''ll talk about both trips along with tackle tips and area's to fish. Tackle #2 test line, number 16 treble hook and a number 5 split shot. (all dipped in your favorite Garlic dip) I like fishing power bait, so I'll tell you the best colors. Yellow aka Corn and Chartreuse Green with Garlic. (If their around they will eat that!) If your not getting bites, it's not the bait but the location! (so move!!!!) Lol If you really want to catch fish there, you need a boat! We drift and if you find a group of trout, you could anchor on them but in finding the fish you need to drift. Or keep moving and anchoring every 30 minutes, till you have some success! Last week we caught 7 trout for 2 people and had another 8 bites. We caught 2 fish to the right of the last air ratter, 2 fish a 100 yards before the last air ratter and 3 fish in Willow Cove which is just left and before the last air ratter.
So this week we started fishing in the same places and for 2 hours we didn't get a bite. (we only saw 1 fish caught by everyone else in the same area) So back to square 1! Lol Remember these are Mentally challenged fish, so they could be any where! (they did stock this week, so they have to be some where!) So we started drifting by the New Crappie float. Their was 4 or 5 boats in there, so we were hoping their was fish in there too! We got no bites and saw nothing caught. So I told Phillip my partner, we were going to let the winds of chance hopefully blow us into some fish! (it did!) We came drifting into a cove with no other boats in there and it looked like my power mouse had a couple of sniffs while we were there. Then all of a sudden the Barbie pole goes off on Corn power bait! A nice 3 pounder comes on board and we beat the skunk! I told Phillip we are going back in there and I think their might be a group of them in there waiting for us! What happened next was both comical and tragic at the same time! I set the drift to go right down the middle of this thing. Phil got bit first and while he's fighting this thing, his other rod goes off! He hands me one rod while he fights the other one. I could have just reeled the fish in and that would have been that! But because it was slow, I wanted Phil to reel both fish in. (So I just held the fish) Then my rod goes off and we have a triple going! Then it turns into one big cluster disaster and we lose all 3 fish!!! Ok we found the fish in a spot that no one has a clue their in there. So for the next 2 hours we made the same little drift and got bit every time! We both caught 4 each and if we stayed at it in there, we could have finished off our limits there but I wanted to check out a couple of other spots before we went home! As with these mentally challenged fish, no more bites for us! Lol
I understand why Lake Wohlford management made their decision to change hatchery's. (they are also getting some real nice bigger fish now, then they did before!) But when I see a lot of boats coming in with just 1 or 2 fish, it's kind of sad! Because I knew and a lot of other people knew, how much better it was before they changed to the Mount Lassen Mentally challenged trout! Lol
