
Collins Lake
Target Trout In Deep Water
OREGON HOUSE – The trout fishing is going strong at Collins Lake, but you need to troll deep for success.
“The key is to troll at 30 feet deep in the main channel of the lake,” revealed Cal Kellogg at fishcalkellogg.com. “We’ve been catching the fish on Trout Trix Worms and Trinidad Tackle Popped Eye Spoons in orange and white. The fish are going up to 5 pounds.”
“Fishing isn’t red hot,” Kellogg said “We’re putting in our time to catch half-limits.”
Green sunfish and largemouth bass are also biting. A recent kids trip produced a 5 lb. largemouth and 7 green sunfish to 1 pound, Kellogg noted.
The last trout plant of 1,000 pounds of mixed rainbow and lightning trout for the spring went into the lake in May. Trout planting programs are currently scheduled to resume in October as surface temperatures allow.
The lake level is 9 feet from full and slowly dropping. The surface water temperature is 82 degrees and the water is clear.
Ed Palma at the Collins Lake confirmed that “the trout bite has fallen off a bit - or else there’s just fewer fishermen on the water, but we’re still seeing occasional big catches, and a few limits…and some surprising shoreline successes.” Palma cited the following catches:
Mark Yanuskiewicz caught a beautiful 9.5 lb rainbow trout using PowerBait. Stetson and Grayson caught a pair of Lightning Trout and three Rainbows also on PowerBait.
The Batham Family loaded up a brag-board’s worth of big trout that they hooked using a variety of Garlic PowerBait and Salmon Eggs- and looks like someone even made a First Catch.
Ilya and Anatoliy brought in four trout using PowerBait down by the dam including one that weighed in at over 4 pounds!
Ronald Counts caught a 1.5 pound Redear Sunfish using Berkeley’s Jointed Rat-L-Trap. The Zaski family are long time Collins Lake Crappie Catchers and they didn’t disappoint this year- showing off seven good sized crappie caught using worms.
In mid-June, Sonny and Mark from Colfax caught a double limit of trout including both Lightning Trout and Rainbow Trout while trolling worms on an old catfish classic…hot dogs. But it was Tyler from Roseville who caught the catfish. While Ethan, also of Roseville, showed off another rainbow trout:.
Finally, Roman and Tim from Antelope caught a matching set of Rainbow Trout and Lightning Trout to fill a double limit, all caught using PowerBait down by the dam.
“Keep an eye out for catfish to come as summer is traditionally the best time to catch the biggest ones,” noted Palma. “We expect warming water to continue to push trout deeper, so even though most of the trout in this report were caught from shore, come prepared to troll and probably best to bring downriggers if you have them. Crappie and redear sunfish are off their beds but still biting too,” he concluded.
- Dan Bacher