BLUE LAKES AREA, CALIF: Dave Kirby of the Woodfords Station (530-694-2930): We got 15 inches of "Partly Cloudy" over the weekend. S.R. 88 was closed most of Sunday and there were hardly any humans up here. Pretty darn quiet, but we need the water for this coming summer.
CAPLES LAKE, CALIF: Doug Busey of Douglas County reported that there is about 6 feet of snow on top of about 4 feet of ice.
FRENCHMAN RESERVOIR, CALIF: Wiggin's Trading Post at Chilcoot, Calif. (530-993-4683): Frenchman remains entirely frozen. Fishing has slowed down but those who are willing to hike up towards Lunker Point are catching some nice rainbows. Use small jigs and nightcrawlers.
FT. CHURCHILL COOLING PONDS (on the Mason Valley Wildlife Management Area): Elmer Bull of Yerington reported that Pat Kelly and his son were casting Daredevil spoons and caught a 6-pound channel catfish and several other small catfish. Other fishermen reported catching quite a few bass (mostly shakers) by casting plastic worms parallel to the bank.
HINKSON SLOUGH, NEV: Elmer Bull reported that fishing is not red hot, yet. Fishermen are catching some fish, but not very many.
PYRAMID LAKE, NEV: Valerie and Linda at Crosby's Lodge at (775) 476-0400: There were some fishermen but not that many Our biggest fish of the week was a 10-pound, 12-ounce (30 inches) Cutthroat at "The North Nets" by Ryan Hueber of California with a black fly on the 21st. Ryan also caught a 10 pounder at "The North Nets" on the 18th with a black fly.
PYRAMID LAKE, NEV: George and Carla Molino of the Pyramid Lake Store at (775) 476-0555: Not much happened over the weekend due to the weather. There were no boats out there. A few fly guys were catching fish at Pelican Point and Wino Beach with Beetles. Some shore fishermen at Block House and Pelican Point were using heavy, frog-colored spoons. Nothing big was caught.
PYRAMID LAKE, NEV: Jim Hartfiel of Just Rite Fishing at Pyramid Lake at (775) 575-7850 (home) or (775) 813-3411 (Cell): Saturday morning, I was the deck hand and Chris Grellman was the Captain, plus we had one client. We made a pass up to Warrior Point and then back to Pelican. At 11:30, we got off the lake, just in the nick of time, as a bad wind came up fast. We helped four other boats dock, but they really got beat up against the side of the dock by the huge waves. The waves were higher than the dock.
SMITH RIVER, CALIF: Dave Jacobs of Professional Guide Services (800) 355-3113: Steelhead fishing has improved somewhat with a little better catch rates reported for anglers in the right place at the right time. Anglers can expect to work a bit harder for their bites and need to capitalize on those bites as they happen. A mix of both fresh and downstream Steelhead are coming in for both boat and bank anglers. Fishing pressure has been light for February and one to three Steelhead a day with a few zeros mixed in seemed to be the norm. Rain has returned to the North Coast's Smith River with river levels favorable for both the bank and drift boat angler's. Flows did rise to the mid ten foot level at the Jed Smith Park gauge and are now dropping at the time of this report. Steelhead have averaged 8-12 pounds with Steelhead in the mid to high teen's or even the low twenty pound class a real possibility on the Smith River. Side drifting natural cured roe and a Quickie puffball or various Glo Bug yarn combos and Quickie puffballs have produced most hook-ups. Back trolling Hot shots and Brad's Wigglers in various color combos has also been a good go to technique.
LAKE TAHOE - North Shore: Gene St. Denis of Blue Ribbon Charters and Tahoe Trophy Trout at South Lake Tahoe, Calif. (530-544-6552): When we can get out, we are getting 4-10 fish per trip that run 2-7 pounds with some larger. We have been trolling 140-260 feet deep. We locate the fish on the fish finder and then troll Dodgers and a live minnow in a "Figure Eight" pattern, bouncing the bottom. I've been fishing at Cal-Nevada Point, Dollar Point and Sugar Pine Point. The Macks are feeding very heavily on shrimp, crawdads and Kokanee Salmon. I had a group of 4 fishermen from Ray Murphy Sheet Metal on Saturday. It was white-out blizzard conditions and we had to use GPS to get to and from Dollar Point. I think that we were off that point, but you could not see anything due to the heavy snowfall.
They had a couple of hits, one bite and caught an 18-pound Mackinaw at 220 feet with a Dodger and minnow.
LAKE TAHOE - South Shore: Gene St. Denis: No report, as the fishing at the north end is too good to pass up.
LAKE TAHOE - East Shore: Gene St. Denis: The Cave Rock Ramp has been plowed, and I recommend a 4WD vehicle for launching your boat.
TOPAZ LAKE: Chuck and Linda Fields at the Topaz Lake Marina (775-266-3550): You can now launch boats from our marina with no problems. We have about 2 feet of snow, right now (Monday) but it is melting nicely. With the storm over the weekend, there was not much fishing, but we had a report of a 6-pounder caught on Sunday. Today, it is beautiful, but it would be tough getting to the shoreline due to the snow.
TOPAZ LAKE: Diane at the Topaz Lake General Store (775-266-3337): Fishing is still going strong this week. Many anglers have brought multiply fish to be weighed in for a chance to win the Grand Prize boat on April 20, 2008. On Friday in spite of the snowstorm, many die-hard anglers were out on the shores fishing, and one lucky angler Tony Hemmah from Wellington, Nevada landed the biggest fish of the year so far. It was a whipping 6 lbs. 1 oz. beauty. Tony was on the North Shore using nightcrawlers. Our second place fish was reeled in by Ron John: 4 lb. 11 oz. Roy Huett of Carson City landed a $50.00 tagged fish weighing 2 lb. 3 oz. on the south end.
WILDHORSE RESERVOIR, NEV: Dennis Dunn, Jerry, Fred, Ron and Debbie at the Wild Horse Resort (775) 758-6472: Those storms hitting you guys, have been missing us. We have about 2 feet of snow and about 15 inches of ice on the reservoir. There have been lots of ice fishermen. We had 4 guys from California, who in 4 days, caught 835 perch, their limits of trout, plus 4 Channel Catfish. I've never heard of Catfish being caught through the ice, but they did. Small flashers and Mealworms are the hot ticket.