"Because he's out there fishing, while you're sitting home making that little circle in the air with your hand, pretending you're reeling one in."

Poof! That broke the spell. If the wife is actually accusing you of not fishing enough, it's time to get out there. Here's my report.

Lake Tahoe: Just a few more weeks left of what has been an excellent season for kokanee salmon on the big lake. They are currently moving closer to the mouth of Taylor Creek, where they will make their fall spawning run. By mid-October, there will be thousands of fish covering every inch of the bed of a stream so small the water barely covers their backs. Silver and streamlined while in the lake, these fish undergo an incredible transformation in the last few weeks of life, turning bright red with black heads. The males also grow huge humped backs and elongated, snaggle-toothed jaws, or kypes. This is an amazing spectacle, as the fish fight for mates, spawn and then die; if you're in Tahoe this fall, be sure to stop by the Forest Service stream observation chamber and interpretive walkways along the bank of the creek at Highway 89. Natural reproduction here is strong, but the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and volunteers from Project Kokanee also strip fish of eggs and sperm, taking them to hatcheries where kokanee are reared to place back in Tahoe and other suitable waters. The program is clearly successful, as I've been finding huge schools of kokanee lately on seminars I've conducted for clients on their boats. These are generally serious, experienced anglers who are simply a bit intimidated by the lake's size and depth, and aren't sure where to start and what techniques to use. If you're interested in hiring me as a consultant to help you dial in Tahoe or one of the other lakes I know like the back of my hand, call Tahoe Fly Fishing Outfitters at (530) 541-8208, or email me for details.

Though I feel pretty confident when it comes to putting clients on to good numbers of kokanee as well as mackinaw in the course of a morning, my knowledge of specialized techniques used for the salmon was recently given a big boost, when I had the opportunity to fish for these landlocked sockeye with one of the most dedicated and skilled kokanee anglers in the region, Keith Kerrigan. Keith is a guide out of Truckee, and though he's known for catching giant mackinaw on Donner Lake and consistently finding the big rainbows of Davis and Eagle Lakes, his passion in summer is chasing kokanee on Stampede Reservoir. He designs and sells his own kokanee lures, which have been winning derbies on Stampede, and when I told him of the good action I'd been finding on recent trips, he asked me to join him on his boat for a Tahoe adventure, to try out his latest batch of lures on a different lake. I warned him- "I'm a sponge, you know. I'm going to absorb all the secrets you show me, and I'll use them with clients on my own trips."

"Good," he replied, "I want more people catching kokanee. The more guys there are fishing for them, the more interest there will be in managing lakes for them. More and bigger kokanee in more waters, more kokanee derbies, more people buying my lures, everybody wins."

He then went on to talk about how lakes with kokanee produce big brown trout and mackinaw which feed on the salmon, that kokanee are plankton eaters and so don't compete with trout for minnows and crayfish, and that they that can be harvested heavily for the table, yet replenished cheaply in the form of natural reproduction or stocked fingerlings. Food for thought, and some of the most delicious food this side of Alaska. I know of no fish from freshwater or salt more delightful to the palate than Tahoe kokanee, with a taste that is both rich and flavorful yet buttery and mild at the same time. "Sure Keith, I'll go fishing with you."

He met me at Cave Rock (one of the few boat ramps open in the current-low water conditions) before dawn, and we made the run across the lake to the Cascade Creek area in less than half an hour with his 90 horse four-stroke motor at full throttle. As we slowed to look for our quarry, the morning's first light brought out the details of Keith's custom built boat, and I noticed that he had four electric downrigger units bristling from the stern. He seemed quite mellow as we chatted and circled the boat at low speed through the area and depth where I had found salmon the previous week, but as soon as his sonar marked fish at the correct depth for kokanee, he leapt up and began rigging baits like a man possessed. In less than five minutes, he had all his downriggers in play, with four lures running between 70 and 80 feet deep. I asked how I could help as he moved frantically about the deck, and he replied "Just watch out that I don't run you over. This is what I live for."

I could see this was true as he monitored his rods while steering the boat and glancing at his sonar screen. Talk about multi-tasking! His system included running his double-bladed spinner rigs on the two outer downriggers, with his kokanee bugs behind Seps Pro dodgers on the inner ones. I asked why the bugs had six eyes and he explained "I was a big Deadhead (Grateful Dead fan) for years. Still am." Enough said. Literally, since we had no more time for idle talk for the next couple of hours. All Keith's lures caught fish, but as he makes them in a variety of colors, he would change one out to a new pattern if it went ten minutes without a bite. The colors really did seem to matter, and as the morning progressed it was his quick changes to new colors that kept the action from slowing. We ended up keeping nine fish, with as many lost and another eight or nine released. Kokanee tend to bleed easily, but the long-shank hooks Keith uses on both his spinners and bugs seemed to minimize this, allowing release of fish in good condition.

Besides plenty of great kokanee fishing tips, Keith also gave me some samples of his lures, and some of the best smoked salmon fillets I've ever tasted. The lures were free, but when I asked him for his fish-smoking recipe, he said "That I'd have to charge you for." You can try some, though, on a guided trip with Keith; he always brings smoked kokanee as a snack for clients on excursions to Stampede. There are still a few weeks left of action on that reservoir before the fall spawn as well, and there the kokanee run bigger than on Tahoe, up to around 19 inches this year.

Keith's website is www.sierraanglers.net, and his lures are available at Longs Drugs in Truckee, or you can order them from him direct by emailing him at kokanee@cwo.com. I've put his spinners and bugs to good use on trips with clients, and they've compared very favorably with any of the traditional baits used on Tahoe. Lazy guy I can be sometimes, I was glad to come across a lure and color combination that seems to work all morning- a Seps Pro dodger in the neon chartreuse pattern, followed by one of Keith's six-eyed bugs in chartreuse with orange eyes. Tipped with white shoepeg corn, this rig has been catching kokanee as fast as I can get it in the water at dawn, and is still working at noon, when nothing else seems to interest the finicky salmon.

Heenan Lake: This is California's breeder lake for endangered Lahontan cutthroat trout, and is open for a special catch-and-release fishing season- Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only, from the Friday before Labor Day through the last Sunday in October. This shallow, murky lake is absolutely stuffed with cutthroat, some of them topping five pounds, and when you hit it on opening day after 10 months without the fish seeing a single lure or fly, the action is insane, right? Well, not always. I've had some great opening days here, and my friend Brad Brosman and I were giddy with anticipation as we drove through Markleeville and up Monitor Pass on California Highway 89 on August 30. We arrived late, meaning 10 minutes past sunrise. The dirt parking lot was already full, and as usual, a DFG representative was staying in a camper for the weekend, welcoming and monitoring anglers.

Float tubers were most numerous, making the lake look like a sparse bowl of Cheerios, but several cartop boats and canoes had also launched. The lake has no boat ramp and only electric motors are permitted; my friend and I pushed off in my canoe, then I switched on my Minn Kota trolling motor and we joined the throng. Winds were light, the water glassy-calm, with big fish splashing on the surface amid a medium-thick bloom of algae. Employing a strategy that has worked well for us over the years, we slow trolled small, barbless spinners to travel toward the far end of the lake. Almost immediately, I hooked my first fish, a 20 inch Lahontan, on a gold-bladed Panther Martin lure. After a quick photograph and release, we were fired up and ready for the next fish. We then remained ready, and progressively less fired up, for the next six hours. Yes, God bless trout, that just when you think you have them figured out, in a hatchery pond no less, they stump you.

We also heard very little of the whooping and hollering that often echoes off the hills on opening day here, and by noon the crowd of anglers had seriously thinned. I switched to fly fishing, pulling woolly buggers on a sinking line, and caught one 16 inch cutthroat. By early afternoon, I had resorted again to spinning lures, hooking one more small fish on a Kastmaster spoon, while my friend Brad finally had a 'flurry' of two trout, both around 14 inches, on a silver Vibrax spinner. I saw only a few other anglers hook up, with the hot rods of the day belonging to two other anglers trolling spinners from a boat; they claimed to have a dozen fish between them, and we witnessed them bringing in one fat trout around 22 inches.

Before leaving, I stopped to compare notes with Victor Babbitt, master guide and my boss at Tahoe Fly Fishing Outfitters. Victor is one of the most skilled and well-rounded fly anglers I've ever met, and he reported a damn tough day as well. He and a friend were fishing from his inflatable Outcast drift boat, and he told me "I've tried everything in my arsenal- fast stripping, slow twitching, 'heave it and leave it' under an indicator; woolly buggers, prince nymphs, scuds, and I've been struggling all day." Take heed, fly fishers, because even if these methods were not productive at the time, Victor had just shared nearly the entire list of hot fly techniques at Heenan. As we discussed the tough fishing, we came to the consensus that the trout are just too well fed right now. Insects covered the lake, from mayflies to caddis to damselflies to terrestrials, and the algae and thick shoreline weed growth also bespoke of a rich, fertile food chain. When the fish are always half full, they're only half interested. The low water clarity may also account for flashy spoons and spinners currently outfishing flies. Make no mistake, the cutthroat are there, but it may take a few weeks of cold nights to clear the water of algae and put them on a more aggressive bite.

Caples Lake: After the rough time on Heenan, I promised my buddy Brad that we would redeem ourselves on a lake we knew would provide better action. With a day off to sleep in, we again rose before dawn on September 1, this time driving over Carson Pass to Caples. We carried my canoe and gear down the corner of the rip-rap boulder dam (we don't need no stinkin' boat ramps) and launched into the characteristic ripples that always seem to move across this wind-prone lake. Our initial strategy was to fast-troll Rapala plugs, with Brad catching and releasing one 15 inch brown trout. As the first direct rays of sun hit the water, we trolled the southern shoreline for close to an hour without another fish, so we decreased our speed and began trolling nightcrawlers and flies behind Seps Pro dodgers. This quickly changed our luck, as we began reeling in a mix of hatchery rainbow and brook trout. All these fish were small, though, none exceeding 13 inches, so when we neared the rocky mouth of Woods Creek, I decided to change one of our lures. "There's always a big boy or two over here." I told Brad. Sometimes there is an obvious logic behind lure choice, such as 'bigger lure, bigger fish,' but I've nearly as often found the opposite to be true, with larger, warier trout responding better to a more subtle presentation. Although the Seps Pro is one of the smallest, lightest dodgers on the market, at 4 inches long it still emits a strong vibration and flash. While this lure in the silver/prism tape pattern is my day-in-day-out favorite, I've experimented over the past few years with the 2.25 inch Seps Sidekick dodger, and have found that at times downsizing to this tiny, oval blade produces more and better fish. My favorite pattern is 'watermelon', which with a green and violet background with black dots on one side, and pure silver on the other, looks to me like a baby rainbow trout as it swings back and forth in the water on a slow troll.

Well, rainbow is as rainbow does, because within 20 minutes of trolling threaded nightcrawlers behind the Sidekick, Brad caught two gorgeous rainbow trout over three pounds! Although there are large hatchery rainbows stocked here for summer fishing derbies (look for the Dinner For Two At The Kirkwood Inn tag stapled to the dorsal fin), these fish had full, square tails and the appearance and fight of wild trout. This is quite possible, as lake tributaries Caples and Woods Creeks, although tiny, both carry populations of wild rainbow and brown trout. Since we had already kept seven hatchery fish, we decided to release both of these fat rainbows. Thank you Caples, for redeeming us!

East Carson River: If you want big trout, but driving a boat in circles all day is not your idea of a fishing trip, here's the spot for you. There is certainly a special feeling that comes from hiking the bank and wading in the current of a cold, fast running river, and when my knees and a certain other part of my anatomy become sore from too many hours in the canoe, I know just where to go. Low and clear, but full of fish, the East Fork was stocked by the DFG just last week, and the put-and-take roadside sections are still producing well for anglers with the patience and stealth to sneak up to the river's edge. The real story, though, is the wild-trout section, where catch-and-release regulations help a resident population of trout hold strong all year. The fish are mostly rainbows, with a few brown trout and cutthroat mixed in. Many of the stocked trout put in the upper river also drop down to the safety of the no-kill stretch, providing an interesting mix of fish for anglers of every ability level. Beginners will find plenty of willing 10 to 14 inch stocked fish, while experienced fly casters have a chance at big wild trout, as well as some absolute monster rainbows planted by Alpine County. This county has its own fish and game commission, which adds frequent stockings of trophy-sized fish to the East Carson. On a recent trip to the river I had a run-in with one of these hogs, and while I'll always prefer a wild trout, I'm still having trouble wiping the grin off my face.

I hiked in at dawn, walking about two miles downstream from Hangman's Bridge. Fishing my way back up, I caught and released 11 trout, a mixture of stocked and wild rainbows in the 12 to 14 inch range. Most fell for nymphs bounced along the bottom, but by mid-morning I found a channel alive with rising fish, and managed to take two on a small dry fly. By early afternoon, I was back just below the bridge and parking area, with a dozen other anglers in sight. I stood in front of a small hole maybe four feet deep, and thought "Well, I'll just try and hook one more little rainbow then head out."

On my first cast I had just such a small fish strike and come off before I could even set the hook. Unsatisfied, I flipped my fly out again, watched my strike indicator twitch in exactly the same way, then lifted my rod and tightened the line to find it connected to a huge fish leaping and flopping at the surface! As passersby gathered to watch and shout encouragement from the bank behind me, I worked for over 15 minutes to tire the trout, which alternately sulked immovable at the bottom, then tore recklessly up and downstream among sharp edged rocks. Just as it dropped into shallow, fast water and I was sure it would break off, it rolled up for a moment onto a submerged boulder, and I slid the hoop of my net under it like a spatula on a griddle.

YEAH! I hoisted it up with nearly half its body hanging out of my net, and after a smattering of applause from the peanut gallery, I enlisted one of my observers to take a photo with my disposable camera. He framed an excellent shot, and as it turns out, he was a local taxidermist, who quoted me a price for a fiberglass reproduction of my catch-and-release trophy. At 20 dollars per inch, my estimated 7 to 8 pound fish would cost over 500 dollars to copy. I think I'll just blow up the photo. Although healthy and hard-fighting, with beautiful markings, the trout's worn, rounded tail fin told me that it was not wild, but a holdover hatchery fish. For the record and even more bragging rights, it was caught on my tiny # 18 marabou caddis nymph, on 5X ( 4 pound) tippet.

At press time, the weather has turned windy, cool and rainy here in Tahoe, and if this is a precursor to the wet El Nino winter experts predict and anglers are hoping for, there will be plenty of time to wait out the storms in front of the television, listening to Jimmy Houston's annoying cackle as he kisses yet another five pound bass. Warm, sunny weather is expected to return next week, and early fall fishing in the Eastern Sierra can be red hot! Here are two bonus reports, which I share on the condition that you turn off the computer and go wet a line after you read them. These darn fishing websites are almost as bad as the TV shows!

The West Carson river is also still being stocked with trout, even though it has now shrunk to a mere trickle. Anglers over Labor Day weekend reported good catches, including some of the Alpine County Tourism Booster rainbows to six pounds. Crouch, creep, or crawl to avoid spooking fish, and use any bankside cover to hide behind when casting. Fly fishing is an excellent choice in these conditions, and a great combination is to use a big, fluffy dry fly such as a hopper pattern or Stimulator, with a beadhead nymph on a short dropper.

For non-stop action for pan-size rainbows from the comfort of a boat or lawn chair, it would be hard to beat Lower Blue Lake at this time. I took my wife and three children for a mid-day canoe trolling trip on Labor Day, and we had 10 fish in the boat, releasing another dozen, in less than two hours. Even my four-year old daughter got in the action, her face dead-serious as her chubby little fist reeled furiously until she swung one 11 inch trout right out of the water and into my wife's lap. Seps Pro dodgers were once again responsible for our success, trolled ultra-slow with nightcrawlers on short leaders. Bank anglers were also doing well, especially by the rocky northern end of the lake.

Until next time, remember, never stand in a canoe!
Mark Wiza
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