With widely spaced cloud clusters occasionally obscuring the days’ sunshine I putzed around on Lake Shasta in an attempt at research for massbassin a couple of times this past weekend. The weather guy on the tube said our area of California was finally going to get some wet stuff from an arriving low pressure by late Sunday or early Monday. But Friday and Saturday were just fine. Fine enough to be shirt off in the afternoons.
Friday was my first day to test the bite. After a cool, breezy morning the lake calmed to a glaze that mirrored Shasta Dam in one direction and Mt Shasta over Slaughterhouse Island in the other. I was trolling for big rainbows and Chinook out in the middle between the dam and Digger Bay Marina. There wasn’t much going on according to the chart, and nary a strike on my lures, so I headed for one of my favorite coves, and it was shirt off warm by the time I got there.
The chart showed fish way back in the cove as usual, but the fish I catch back there are usually crappie, bluegill, and bass. Once in a while I pick up a trout, but not that often, and the trout tend to be afflicted with copepods. These are small crustaceans that attach themselves to many of the fish in the lake. These fresh water lice-like creatures infest some fish while missing others. The fish that are infested with them tend to be rather sickly, and hard to revive when brought to the boat. If the intent is to release them, take some time and make sure they are oxygenated enough to swim down, or they will just fin around on top of the water to make a good target for an eagle or osprey. If the intent is to use the fish as dinner fare, documentation I have read states the fish are fine for consumption when cooked. Might want to avoid munching the skin though since the copepods are an external parasite. Go here for an article describing how these aquarian hitchhikers were controled in the Merced river; http://www.vetofish.com/article-15098-Biological-Control-of-the-Parasitic-Copepod.html.
My best rig has been a chrome and brass dodger with a Shasta Tackle blue wiggle hoochie trailing about 18 inches back trolled at depths between 35 and 90 feet. Nice rainbow trout are anywhere in this zone. Watch for groupings on the chart and experiment. At the deeper depth I have been picking up kings, but not this last weekend. I did see what appeared to be salmon at about 140 feet, but that is just too deep for my downrigger clips to keep a grip on the line. I know this so I don’t even try. I may replace them some day, but not now. Too much fun to be had shallower.
Spotted bass and a couple of nice small mouth hammered a chrome F-7 flatfish trolled at 35 feet. They hit so hard I thought the pole holder was going to split! More spotted bass in the one and a half to two and a half pound range were gulping my hoochie on the other rod. I also had a couple of take downs using a blue/chrome Krocodile spoon, and a grey and black Rapala. Rainbows on the spoon and Rap at about 55 feet on the wire.
Hope the weather gives me a chance to go again during this next week and have an opportunity to be Ketchinnee.