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CAMANCHE KICKS INTO HIGH GEAR!

By: Ron Wilson 

April 3, 2003.... Its the time of year that the trout bite is fixin' to bust wide open! With that in mind, Guide Bruce Hamby, of Ripon, and I went to Lake Camanche last week to check out the trout fishing.

Bruce likes to experiment with all types of lures, while last year we used a lot of Ex-Cel's with success, this year we would try grubs. Heck it was almost like black bass fishing, you take a single shank number four hook, thread on a Berkley Power Egg in whatever color choice you preferred and then select a 3 inch plastic grub in whatever color you like. Then let out some line and hook it to a downrigger clip, lower it into the water at the depth the fish are and your ready. Boy that sure sounds simple doesn't it! Sorry that was just the start, as we had a lot more to learn before the day was done!

Bruce and I started at the buoy line from the Camanche North Shore boat ramp as we trolled toward the dam. We set up with 4 different colored grubs in the top 15 feet of water. The first strike came from a white grub with a chartreuse power egg in front. We trolled a while longer with no success so I put on a small flasher to help add more action to the chartreuse egg and pink grub I had on. Within a couple hundred yards I had a nice one on for one good jump before he threw the hook. We trolled on for another quarter mile without any action before Bruce got up and let the line out on one rod so it would be at least 100 feet behind the boat. When the water is clear the trout can become real spooky and want the lure a long, long way behind the boat, especially if the fish are up in the top 20 feet of water. In short order Bruce had a nice one on that jumped and really gave his Lamiglass rod a workout. We traveled another quarter mile on the water while he fought the fish from one side of the boat to the other. This fish fought like a real trooper and what we thought was a nice fish in the 5 pound plus class turned out to be a long 3 1/2 pounder.

Bruce had figured out the pattern, an orange grub with an orange egg over a 100 feet behind the boat. We arrived at little Hat Island where Bruce scored again, and before we got to the buoy line at the dam Bruce had hooked a couple more. While I was soaking up the sun Bruce was hammering the fish! I switched over to orange grubs on my two rods and soon was into the fish also. To bad it took us 3 hours to figure out the bite, we could of been out of there early. But then again we would of missed the extra hours of fishing and the great weather. 

We started trolling back to Hat Island where we got a double. I finally had a good rod shaker in the 3 pound
class that was fun.

One thing I noticed about fishing the grubs is that the trout just seem to swim up behind the bait and swallow it without hardly letting you know they are there. I watched as Bruce's rod tip bounced like a nibble you would get if you were bait fishing. Bruce grabbed the rod and set the hook and said "this is a real nice one". I got all the rods in and even turned the boat back toward the fish so that Bruce would not be spooled by the fish. After several minutes battling this monster, we could see that it was better than 5 pounds. After a few anxious moments when the fish made a couple runs behind the  boat I finally managed to net it. A real nice fish in the 6 pound class. Bruce's scale said 5.15 but the tail was on the ground so I guarantee it was bigger than that!

If you plan on doing some catch and release I would not recommend using grubs, because about half the time the fish will swallow the bait before you know they are there.

Now is the time to head to your favorite area to catch fish, but be sure and get an early start because the hotter it gets the more pleasure boaters will be out!

For more information about Sierra Sportfishing, visit their website or call 599-2023 or see his ad here!