Earlier this year in February the Yuba River watershed experienced an ecological diaster after the failure of the Colgate powerhouse penstock pipe failed. The broken pipe sent an incredible amount of water rushing down the hill carving part of it away before it was shut off. Thankfully no lives were lost but tons of debris and oil was washed down into Lake Englebright. My son and I had just fished the lake the week before the disaster and were hoping to get on it for the rest of the month but the lake was closed until further notice for cleaning. The lake reopened in mid-March and we were finally able to give it a try after finding some time in mid-April.

The lake was surprisingly clear with just a small tint of murkiness. We were fishing an overcast day just before a front so the fishing should have been great. Prior to our visit I had checked the DFG website for stocking schedules as Englebright was supposed to be stocked the week before but records didn’t show any history of stocking so I assumed they cancelled due to the disaster. With no new fresh fish in the system we found the fishing to be somewhat slow.

Flies were the hot ticket the last time we fished Englebright and they were just as effective this visit. We went three for four with three fish on flies and one on a trix worm. We saw a pretty good amount of surface activity throughout the lake and all of the fish we caught were at depth between 5ft – 8ft. The fish were looking pretty beat up this time around and all but one of the fish we caught had copepod and ich sores all over them. Reports from other anglers who fish the lake are also experiencing a high infected fish rate. My theory is that the fish became extreme stressed during the Colgate disaster due to the sudden water chemistry change which disrupted their immune system making them more susceptible to diseases and parasites. This phenomenon happens often in the aquarium hobby and it seems like it’s happening on Englebright at a much larger scale. A lot of people will tell you that these fish are healthy but I disagree. A healthy fish should appear bright and clean as they can easily fight off both diseases and parasites. Although not completely healthy I do feel like these fish are okay enough to eat.

My daughter and I made another trip to Englebright later in April and fished calm and sunny conditions that later turned into gusty wind. I think I’m starting to get a feel for trolling now as I cycled through different depths and lures until I found what was working. The depth part of the equation is a bit tricky right now since I don’t have a fish finder yet but through being observant seeing absolutely no surface activity, I guessed that the fish were deeper this day. My guess paid off correctly at 10ft and we managed to pull in four fish in three hours. My son and I fished it again the first week of May and it appears like the trolling has slowed down for the year. The conditions were perfect, overcast with an incoming cold front, and we only managed to get three takes in 8 hours. There were very small bite periods in the afternoon with several fish breaking the surface that would end after about 15 minutes. I adjusted and swapped set-ups several times and found that an orange trolling fly top lined were what the fish wanted. Englebright is in the process of turning over as the water has become warmer and bass can be seen cruising along the banks. It looks like it’s time to put away the trolling rods and break out the bass and fly rods.