Folsom Lake Kings Are Big And Feisty

September 2, 2004
By Dan Bacher

More Articles By Dan Bacher

King salmon fishing at Folsom Lake has been hit and miss this year, but the action has been exceptional this summer when the bite is on. Anglers both mooching and trolling are bagging big chinooks in the 18 to 24 inch range. For over a month, Bob Sparre of Rocky River Guide Service found exceptional fishing, ending up with limits of chinooks by 10 a.m. on many days.

"On our best day of fishing this July," said Sparre, "we landed over 40 fish, keeping our limits and releasing numerous other fish. We've fished a variety of areas, including the dam, the North Fork, the South Fork and Dike 8. Our largest fish was a 24-1/2 incher, but we've caught numerous other salmon right around 24 inches.

I joined Sparre for a morning of fishing with his brother, Brent, on August 3. I hadn't fished with Sparre for 10 years - and I hadn't fished at Folsom, one of my favorite fishing lake, when I was a child - for two years.

"The bite has slowed down," Sparre told me the night before our trip. "We landed six salmon on our last trip and my friend, Bill Wagner, caught four fish to 22 inches yesterday."

Sparre gave me the option of canceling out, but I decided to go anyway, in spite of the slowdown. We figured that the slow bite was a result of the rapid drop in the lake - as much as foot a day - over the previous week. Folsom, being the closest lake to the Delta is used by the Bureau of Reclamation to maintain Delta salinity standards in the West Delta when the state and federal projects are exporting massive amounts of water to the Westlands Water District and southern California.

At press time, the lake was holding 424,000 acre-feet of water, 43 percent of capacity, in contrast to 787,000 to date last year. The water level was 406 feet in elevation, 60 feet from maximum pool.

Hopefully, the bite would pick up today. After we launched at the low water ramp at Granite Bay, Bob drove his jet boat over to the dam where we started mooching. Bob set up the plug-cut herring on sliding sinker rigs and told Brent and I to drop it to the bottom.

"After you drop it to the bottom, reel it up four turns," said Bob. "You want to keep your bait suspended off the bottom."

Because of the increased security restrictions resulting after 9-11 and the various "Homeland Security alerts," the once busy rod over Folsom Dam was now closed to traffic. The only vehicles were dam personnel driving back and fourth periodically across the dam. We could fish no closer to the dam than the line of red buoys that the Bureau of Reclamation has strong near dam.

We didn't have any bites during the first hour while fishing with anchovies.

It was eerily quiet fishing near the dam, since I was used to hearing the constant traffic across the dam in previous years when I fished from the bank or boat before the current security restrictions. The only sound was the sound of the waves from the breeze when they hit the temperature control curtains.

I had one quick bite, followed by a bite that Brent had on his anchovy. Brent set the hook and soon had an 18 inch king salmon in the boat. After a short battle, I he got the fish in the boat, the first (and only) salmon of the day.

I was the next one to hook up a fish on an anchovy, a fat holdover rainbow. We had several other bites, but the fish were not actively feeding. Finally, Bob decided to try trolling around the dam with Rotary Salmon Killers and Hoochies with his glo beads.

"We're trolling at 65 to 100 feet deep for the salmon," noted Sparre. "The rainbow trout are holding at 30 to 60 feet."

Although we saw plenty of fish on the graph, we didn't hook any fish while trolling and at 10:50 a.m., we called it a day. The dropping water level, the tail end of a full moon, whatever was the cause; the fishing was tough this day after a long period of good fishing.

"Hopefully, the bite will pick up again when the water stabilizes," said Sparre.

Although rainbow trout have been stocked in Folsom Lake for decades, the king salmon fishery has become an increasingly popular component of Folsom's fishery. The DFG has stocked fingerling chinooks in Folsom Lake since 1997, with the exception of 2003.

The fishing was varied greatly each year since then, Anglers experienced great fishing in the winter of 1998-1999 and again in the spring and summer of this year. The fish grow fat and feisty in Folsom forage rich waters, due to an abundant population of Japanese pond smelt and threadfin shad.

The DFG stocked 101,856 chinooks in 2001, 100,800 n 2002 and approximately 100,000 this year, according to Terry West, manager of the American River Fish Hatchery.

Folsom is also stocked with large numbers of catchable rainbow and subcatchable trout. Because of DFG cutbacks, Folsom has often been the recipient of additional bonus plants of fish because of the lake's proximity to the fish hatchery in Rancho Cordova. For example, the DFG planted 10,500 pounds of catchable rainbows (19,600 fish) along with 5,000 pounds of subcatchable rainbows (45,000 fish).

Bank fishing is productive for trout and salmon when the lake turns over in the fall. Anglers catch the chinooks and rainbows while fishing at variety of locations, including Five Percent, Granite Bay, Rattlesnake Bar on the North Fork, the Peninsula and Salmon Falls, York Creek and Sweetwater Cove in the south Fork. Trolling is good year round, but becomes most effective with leadcore line and downriggers, when the fish move into deep water in the spring and summer after the thermocline forms.

Besides being a productive trout and salmon fishery, Folsom Lake also harbors good black bass, catfish and sunfish populations.

Spotted, largemouth and spotted bass are found in Folsom, but the spotted bass, like in other foothill lakes in California, are becoming increasingly dominant in the catches. Top water lure fishing, drop shotting, crankbaits and finesse fishing with plastics are all productive, depending on the time of year.

Folsom Lake holds approximately 1,000,000 acre feet of water and stands at 466 feet in elevation when full. Boat ramps available at Folsom include Five Percent, Granite Bay, Folsom Point, Brown's Ravine and Hobie Cove, but make sure you check on the latest launching conditions, due to the current low water conditions on the lake. For facilities information, call 916-988-0205. For camping information, call 1-800-444-4275.

For fishing information, call Sacramento Pro Tackle, (916) 925-0529. For guided trout and salmon trips, call Bob Sparre of Rocky River Guide Service, (916) 863-5866. For guided bass trips, call Don Paganelli of Paganelli's Bass Fishing Experience, (916) 502-FISH.