Whiskeytown Lake (WL)

[4449]

A buddy and I fished at WL for several days last week. We camped at the Oak Bottom Campground; my first time camping there, which to say the least, was an adventure in itself. There were times that we didn't get on the water early because of the winds, but once on, the bite was going from skunk to off-the-hook. We started at the 299 bridge, but the bite wasn't there. Lots of boats though. We headed toward the dam and hooked a few, including a couple of trout. The hot spot was at the corner of the lake below the Visitor Center. Over the next few days, we got our bag limits (20 fish total for both of us). The kokes were from 13" to 15" but the average was 14". All were fat and healthy. Depths ran from 22' to 35'. I primarily used a light colored hoochie with a green smile blade behind a medium sized dodger which got the majority of my fish. My other rod ran a 3 oz. banana sinker to a Fish Flash to a rainbow colored Apex. This setup wasn't far behind my primary rod in bites, but I lost about 50% of them. All in all, the fishing was great.

If you plan to camp at Oak Bottom, make sure you bring a cart to transport your gear to the camping site (depending how close you are to the parking lot). We had to park our vehicles in a lot that was about 75 yards uphill from our site. We certainly got our exercise the day we left making several trips uphill to load back up. If I had to do it again, I'd want a camp trailer and park it at near the boat ramp and "camp" there. You just can't have a campfire.

[wigeonpete]

No reports from Whiskeytown since 2017???

[wigeonpete]

Is this forum still alive? Is anyone fishing Whiskeytown at this time of year?