2007

Larry O'Connell caught this nice 17.5" Koke at Whiskeytown on 8/18

Shasta Week of 8/13 We had good results fishing in front of and just south of No Name Island. Quite a few King were slamming a variety of tackle ranging from Glow Pee Wees, Paddle Tails and Flea Bitty's all behind Glow Patern Sling Blades. Good size Rainbows hitting in front of the dam down 50 to 100' on the same set ups.

Whiskeytown (8/18) - Strong winds made it almost impossible to fish the main body of the lake, dam and curtain. A lot of fish were charted at the dam and we did manage to get one 17.5" Koke landed before we headed to calmer conditions. The Glow Pattern sling blade and Orange/Silver crappie tube is still the primary favorite first thing in the morning.

8/9 - Whiskeytown: I fished WT on Thursday, primarily in front of the dam. Same old combo of SB and Orange/Silver crappie tube. The bite started immediately and we had three koke's in the cooler by 7am. I had hopes of limits before 9am but my hopes were dashed as the wind kicked up about 7:30 and the bite slowed to a crawl. We managed to pick up one more koke around 11am. All nice fat fish between 14 and 16 inches but the copapods were pretty bad on three of the four fish.

7/31 – Whiskeytown - I started fishing in the boat camp area at 6am in a pretty strong wind. A lot of fish and bait were showing on the scope from 20 to 60 ft. I picked up my first fish at 6:30 and it was a nice fat 15” king salmon that hit a chrome/pink sling blade with a pink radical glow. By 8:30, I had two more fish in the boat, another salmon that was the same size as the first one and one Koke that was about 14”. The wind was blowing me all over the place so I motored down to the south end of the dam. I’m spotting some good size schools in the 60 to 100 ft depth range but it was difficult getting them to bite. I did manage to pick up one more Koke (80 ft depth) that went 16 ½ “ and was caught on the same set up. We trolled over to the curtain and made a couple loops but weren’t spotting anything on the scope. It was getting real hot so we decided to call it a day at 1pm but we did manage to get 4 decent fish.

8/2 Shasta Lake - I had not fished Shasta in several years but I read a recent Fishsniffer report from Gary Mirales about where he was fishing and what he was using on Shasta and I just used his information to get started. My partner and I launched at Bridge Bay at 6am and motored over to the front of No Name Island and started trolling. We had four rods in the water and we were covering depths from 45 down to 80 feet. Within 15 minutes, we had our first fish on and netted. It was a gorgeous 21 ½ “ King that weighed 3lbs on the button. The fish hit a Shad Pattern Pee Wee trolled about 12 inches behind a Silver/Pink sling blade at 80 feet. We continued trolling in front of and west of No Name and the bite was relatively steady. By 7:30 we had landed three fish (2 Salmon and 1 Rainbow) and the fish preferred the Shad Pee Wee and Tequila Sunrise Pee Wee. Around 8am I hooked a nice 20” Rainbow (2 ½ lbs) on a Flee Bitty trolled behind a Glow Pattern Sling Blade at 65’. Around 10:30 we motored over to where Backbone dumps into the lake and got three more (2 Salmon and 1 Rainbow). In all, we landed around 14 fish and kept 8, nothing less that 15 inches and it was almost an even mix between Kings and Rainbows.