Collins Lake: Bountiful Trout Amid A Serene Foothills Setting   By: Cal Kellogg May 15, 2008 More Articles by Cal

By California standards, Collins Lake is small with little more than 11 miles of shoreline. Yet north state anglers shouldn't let the lake's modest size fool them, since this Yuba County fishery has a well-deserved reputation for providing big rewards in the form of plentiful trout, trophy caliber bass and monster catfish.

I try to visit Collins Lake several times a year, but I've got to confess that my favorite time to fish the lake is during the spring. March, April and May provide exceptional opportunities to battle both trout and bass. In terms of trout, Collins boasts the most aggressive trout stocking programs in Northern California.

Every spring the folks at the Collins Lake Recreation Area stock the lake with between 40,000 and 50,000 trout. Most of these rainbows fall between 1 and 3 pounds, but big numbers of trophy size trout in the 5 to 8 pound range are introduced into the lake too.

In addition to the private trout plants initiated by the recreation area, Collins also receives plants from the DFG and reaps the benefits of a pen trout rearing program in cooperation with Project Kokanee, Kokanee Power and the DFG.

I made my first pilgrimage of 2008 to Collins Lake on April 17. I'd been hoping to get my father in law Gene Rush out on my new Willie Predator powerboat for several weeks. When I heard that the trout bite at Collins was heating up in a big way, I knew it was time to give Gene a call and hit the water.

Gene and I departed Auburn at around 6 o'clock in the morning and by 7:30, found ourselves motoring away from the launch ramp at Collins. The word on the street was that anglers were hooking big trout while trolling plugs along the eastern shoreline, so that's how we started the day.

I motored up to the area near the mouth of the river channel, killed the big Mercury, fired up the 9.9 Mercury kicker and allowed it to idle while I rigged three rods. The first rod was armed with a Shasta Tackle Matrix Minnow in the rainbow trout pattern. The second rod sported a fire tiger pattern Yo-Zuri rip bait and the third rod was armed with a small Yo-Zuri shad pattern crankbait.

As I maneuvered along the shoreline, Gene spooled the baits out 200 feet behind the boat. It didn't take long for two of the rods to get hammered, but as luck would have it neither fish stuck.

A few minutes later, the rod pulling the fire tiger Yo-Zuri pulled down into a deep bend and Gene was into the first trout of the day. A beat later the rod adorned with the Matrix Minnow got tagged and we had a double. What a way to start the day!

After dropping our pair of fat 14 inch rainbows into the cooler, we proceeded down the shoreline and eventually made our way across the face of the dam. After getting off to such a fast start I was surprised that our plugs didn't draw any more strikes.

Based on the comments from the other trollers we exchanged notes with, the trout seemed to be playing hard to get. Clearly it was time to deploy the downriggers and get stealthy.

I rigged a brown Sep's Grub on one rod, spooled it out 200 feet and dropped it down to 6 feet on the starboard downrigger. On a second rod I rigged a Matrix Paddle Tail, spooled it back about 200 feet and dropped it down to 8 feet on the portside downrigger. On the third rod I tied on a chrome and blue Cripplure and top lined it.

Slowing our speed to 1.8 miles per hour, I steered the boat past the swim beach, toward the river arm. We'd just entered the narrows when the grub rod popped off the downrigger and Gene battled a fat 2 pounder to the boat. About 10 minutes later, as we passed under the power lines, I busted an identical 2 pounder on the Matrix Paddle Tail.

Navigating inside the river arm with our long lines proved to be difficult, so I steered the boat back onto the main lake. "Let's try the east side where we picked up those trout first thing this morning," I told Gene. My hunch proved to be correct. As soon as we started down the east side of the lake we put trout number five into the cooler.

The most exciting moment of the day came as trolled to the outside of a group of hazard buoys about halfway down the eastern shoreline. I was zig zagging along over 30 feet of water when the grub rod hooked up, doubled over and line began ripping off the reel against the resistance of the drag. We'd already put trout up to 2.5 pounds into the cooler, but it was clear that this fish was much larger.

Gene had the next fish, so he pulled the rod out of the holder. There wasn't much Gene could do with the light Shimano downrigger rod, beyond making sure the line stayed tight. I dropped the kicker motor into neutral and got ready with the net, but the big trout remained unseen for at least 5 minutes.

When it did finally show off the starboard side, a jolt of excitement shot through Gene and I. The trout had plenty of length and a broad girth. The rainbow wasn't ready to come within net range, but it was too tired to run so it swam lazily back and forth around the stern.

Gene was getting really excited and I was afraid he was going to try to horse the trout the last few feet to the boat. "Just work the reel and keep the tip up Gene. Don't even look at the fish," I exclaimed.

Tense minutes later the trout boiled to the surface and I was able to scoop it into the long handled net. We estimated that the trout would weigh between 5 and 6 pounds and our estimates proved to be correct, when the trout registered an even 5 pounds on the scale back at the Collins Lake Store.

My first Collins Lake adventure of 2008 was a good one. We hooked and boated 9 handsome rainbows between 1 and 5 pounds. Collins had once again lived up to its reputation as one of the state's top trout fishing destinations.

For more information, call 1-800-286-0576 or (530) 692-1600, fax (530) 692-1607 or go to www.collinslake.com.