This trip started with a look and the fishing planting schedule for California and I noticed that Sugar Pine Reservoir was scheduled to be planted on Sunday, so I thought it would be good to give it a try the following Saturday. That Friday before the trip I felt like I should check the planting schedule again and I noticed that Sugar Pine was nowhere to be found on the recent planting schedule. I guess they decided they didn’t want to plant the fish anymore. Good enough for government work. I was going with Nick and Lonny and we talked it over, about trying somewhere else, but ultimately decided to still try Sugar Pine. I had some success there in the past and it doesn’t get too crowded this time of year.
Saturday morning we headed up, blew up our float tubes and cast-off. Something I was really excited for was a fish finder that I had hooked up to my float tube. As I was kicking out into the water I saw a couple of fish on the finder. I was thinking that we were going to have a good chance at catching something that day. However, as I continued it was a long while until I saw another fish. When I did see fish I noticed they were between 10 and 20 feet down, but like I said, they were pretty sparse. I saw the most fish on the east bank by a downed tree. Someone else told us they picked up a lot of fish on North East bank. The only people that I saw with fish were bank fishermen and even then it was only a couple people. Makes me think that the fish were all just sitting on the bottom of the lake.
We all fished streamers and woolly buggers for a few hours with no success and inevitably threw in the towel. We got some information from the people at the boat ramp that said the fish were really active at dawn but then everything died down. It was just a really slow day. Saw very few people catching fish and heard many people complaining about not catching anything in the parking lot.
Overall it was a good time with friends, but the fishing was poor. My curiosity got the best of me and I checked the planting schedule again on Monday. Sure enough they planted Sugar Pine the day after we went. Would have been nice if they would have posted that on the schedule but, oh well, it means that we can give it another try soon!
Saturday morning we headed up, blew up our float tubes and cast-off. Something I was really excited for was a fish finder that I had hooked up to my float tube. As I was kicking out into the water I saw a couple of fish on the finder. I was thinking that we were going to have a good chance at catching something that day. However, as I continued it was a long while until I saw another fish. When I did see fish I noticed they were between 10 and 20 feet down, but like I said, they were pretty sparse. I saw the most fish on the east bank by a downed tree. Someone else told us they picked up a lot of fish on North East bank. The only people that I saw with fish were bank fishermen and even then it was only a couple people. Makes me think that the fish were all just sitting on the bottom of the lake.
We all fished streamers and woolly buggers for a few hours with no success and inevitably threw in the towel. We got some information from the people at the boat ramp that said the fish were really active at dawn but then everything died down. It was just a really slow day. Saw very few people catching fish and heard many people complaining about not catching anything in the parking lot.
Overall it was a good time with friends, but the fishing was poor. My curiosity got the best of me and I checked the planting schedule again on Monday. Sure enough they planted Sugar Pine the day after we went. Would have been nice if they would have posted that on the schedule but, oh well, it means that we can give it another try soon!
