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Once again we are between the spring and fall runs of salmon on the Klamath and the steelies are not in the river for real yet. We expect them any day so Dan and I decided to do something different last weekend, we embarked on one of our lagoon trips. We had never taken the jetboat into the lagoons and we wanted to get a topographic of the lagoon bottoms so we headed out with the full complement of crew members last Saturday. We got to Stone Lagoon mid morning and put in. As usual I was loaded up with the eclectic collection of strange and wonderful flies I usually stock up on. Dan even tied another fire engine red wooly bugger for me. Since we were on an exploration mission as well as a fishing mission we decided to troll flies while keeping an eye on the electronics. I had the first hook up, yes I had the red fly on, and landed a steelhead about 3 pounds. We were surprised at the small amount of fish we were graphing. All we can conclude is that most of the fish were able to return to the ocean since the lagoon was breached for quite a long time this year with all the rains. Usually there are quite a few fish that are landlocked when the breach closes. We observed that most of the lagoon is quite shallow with the ocean side being more channeled. The creek enters the lagoon on this side, so it makes sense that there would be more sculpting of the bottom. We caught a few cutthroat and steelhead, but not in any numbers. The brown pelicans overhead were suddenly joined by the Goodyear blimp! I kid you not, it seemed so out of place lumbering along the coast. A day fishing always brings some unexpected fun. |
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Dan rigged up a needlefish on his line and immediately began to hook up right and left. The cutthroats and steelhead just can't resist this lure. I was sticking to my Teeny 200 and the various buggers Dan had tied for me. I caught fish on every color from black with an iridescent green wrap, black with peacock hurl, lime green with black, and purple. But it didn't seem that any of these fish wanted my red menace. Dan out fished me by about 10 to 1, but I got the larger fish. We even hooked up on several sets of doubles.
I am famous for "catching" really strange stuff with my fly rod. In Clearlake I caught the smallest freshwater clam I have ever seen and the biggest. This guy was about the size of a softball. Saturday I outdid myself. I stuck to the red bugger and to our amazement I pulled in a dungeness crab. I have the picture to prove it. I told Dan I should start having these things mounted. It seemed that we caught about twice as many steelhead as cutthroat. All were in the range of 10-12 inches, "cookie cutter fish". I did manage to land a few in the two pound range.
If you have never explored these lagoons, I would strongly encourage you to put them on your list. The salt water of Big Lagoon and Stone Lagoon hold a variety of fish, including an occasional halibut or striper. There have been rumors of sturgeon as well. Fresh water lagoon has big mouth and small mouth bass as well as trout. A trip to the lagoons can make for a very active and productive day. They are in the same relative area, so you can move from one to another if you so choose. When your river isn't fishing, check out the alternatives around you. A reservoir, lake, spring creek, irrigation pond, or lagoon in your area might offer a great opportunity to get the fly rod pumping.
Joan Carter
Columnist Joan Carter co-owns, with her husband, Dan Carter's Guide Service.
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Sunday we took the jetboat down to Big Lagoon. We put in at the public ramp and headed north. Dan had brought a gear rod this time, while I stuck to the fly rod. We picked out a selection of wooly buggers in various colors. There were many more fish on our finder as we charted the lagoon floor. It would be my guess that the size of the lagoon and the crisscross pattern of the many channels that head inland, would hold the fish longer in this system. Because of their distance from the breach and the complexity of the channeling, the fish would take longer to extricate themselves. We observed that the bottom undulates, with fingers of shallow water interspersed with holes as deep as 17 feet. These fingers would be great spots to wade.
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