Whiskeytown 7-22 & 7-23

Anthony and I have been fishing DP and NM all year and had some great trips, but he had never been to Whiskey so we set out for his virgin trip on Friday morning. We hit the water about 6:30am and headed to bouy 7 and trolled towards the bridge. We soon started picking up some nice 15-16" fish and kept the 16's till we had our first five at about 9am. The wind had really started to push and there was some boat traffic so we headed for the dam. For the next couple hours we fought the wind so we only ran two rods and didn't get much till the wind let up. Once it let up we started to get the fish to cooperate better and weeded out several fish till we got another 5 from 16-17".

On Saturday, we started about the same time and had no wind and finished about 9:30am with two limits of 16 to just short of 18" fish. Had a blast with Anthony and we both still can't believe how much stronger those fish are than our CV lake fish. Neither one of us can wait to go back!

Details:

Best lures: R&K super micro UV hoochies in orange, pink and purple, Vance's orange glo/UV hoochie and various spinners. Still no Apex bite.

Dodgers: Vance's UV copper/orange and copper/chart, and me and Mario's new prototype dodgers.

Depth : 75-95' OTW

Speed: 1.4-1.7mph

Scent: Combos of freshwater shrimp, garlic, anise and craw all worked.

Tip: Bring your bottom bouncers or stand right with your downriggers and be careful!

Some pics:

A great lure/dodger combo: Vance's UV orange dodger and a R&K Hottail Super micro UV hoochie


Five nice fish:


Saturday's fish:

Great report and pictures Killer B! What's going on with the kokes though... never seen anything like that. Is it some type of parasite?

KillerB, those kokes are as fun to catch as any in any other lake but I flinch everytime I have to touch one to get it off the hook. SilverBullets, they are covered in parasites (copods). The real bad ones look like 100 people blew their nose on the fish. The scoop is they taste the same because the parasite is just on the skin. But it is a real psychological game to get yourself to try it.

SuperD said:

KillerB, those kokes are as fun to catch as any in any other lake but I flinch everytime I have to touch one to get it off the hook. SilverBullets, they are covered in parasites (copods). The real bad ones look like 100 people blew their nose on the fish. The scoop is they taste the same because the parasite is just on the skin. But it is a real psychological game to get yourself to try it.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I was curious about what the heck it was. This came up in a google search...
"The Department of Fish and Game stocked only brook trout in Whiskeytown in 2003, 2004 and 2005 to curb an outbreak of parasites (lernia) in the rainbow trout and kokanee. "The brook trout (a char) feed on the lernia and aren't impacted by the parasite like the salmon and trout," said Larry Hanson, DFG senior fishery biologist. The DFG is stocking 18,500 pounds of catchable brook trout in the lake this season."

Looks like it isn't working too well...

When I started catching Don Pedro fish 20 years ago it bothered me cause I had only fished Pardee and they dont have them. Now it is no big deal at all. They come from the kings they stock and all the lakes that have kings, the kokes have them too.

I'll be up there in a week or two, fish there are awesome, but dang those pod are nasty.

Darel, I just got word from my buddy up there who is my source and good koke fisher that in the last ten days it has really shut off. Who knows, it may get better bit I just wanted you to know he is only having 3 -4 fish days.