Bucks Lake

Success At Bucks Lake

by Matt

Since the beginning of the year I’ve been enjoying time as a homeowner and new father of two. A busy schedule has left me with little time to myself however with all the water that we received this year it doesn’t seem like I’ve been missing out on much.

This year California was blessed with a heavy snowpack after suffering from a severe drought for the past several years. As summer approaches our rivers, streams, and creeks continue to rage with monstrous flows making them extremely dangerous to recreate on. Most rivers probably won’t be safe to play on until July therefore it’s best to shift our focus to stillwaters.

After about six months I was finally able to find some fishing time and attempted to test my stillwater skills on Buck’s Lake for a third time. I came well prepared with my float tube this time and planned to fish around the Buck’s Creek inlet again. Bucks Lake is currently over capacity for water storage at 109%.

As I drove up to Bucks Lake I was able to observe the amount of snowpack that was still high up in the mountains. The Bucks Lake area was still surrounded by snow making it look more like late April rather than early June. Bucks Creek was flowing nicely and completely filled in with still more snow-melt to come. The water clarity this trip was about 3ft which was a bit unusual as Bucks Lake is usually one of the more clearer lakes that I’ve been on. The weather called for possible thunderstorms all week which had me a bit worried. The fishing would either be really good in the morning until the storms roll in or completely suck due to unstable weather.

I was surprised to have the Bucks Creek inlet all to myself both days I was there. Granted I was fishing in the middle of week, Bucks Lake usually sees a lot more people recreating on it this time of the year. My typical stillwater plan is a two rod setup: an 8.5ft 5WT floating line with an indicator rig with a balanced leech and a 9.5ft 6WT sinking line with a woolly bugger. As I made my way into the water my fish finder marked an average depth of about 15ft around the cove of the inlet. The water temperature the first day was 55 degrees and the following day it rose to 60 degrees. The inlet had a temperature of 48 degrees. There were midge shucks and adults all over the surface of the water and I saw small fish rising for them all throughout the cove. Now that I had all the data I needed it was time to turn that data into results.

I like to start by searching for fish with the sinking line setup. I cast around the area for about an hour and had some possible nips but nothing willing to commit. As I trolled to get to a different area I felt a strong tug and set the hook. After an exciting short battle I brought in my first fish a nice size brown trout.

I continued to troll and strip retrieve and hooked several more fish that managed to beat me. After losing fish after fish I became frustrated and decided to head further into the Bucks Creek inlet to see if I could find any fish. The water in the inlet was completely clear and I kept a sharp eye out for fish. I found several good size rainbows in a seam and in a deep pool. Due to the shallower water I switched to my indicator setup. I hooked several more fish but only landed three of them.

Once I got bored of the inlet I made my way back to the cove and switched back to the sinking line. I was able to hook and land a few more nice browns and noticed that the browns were feeding within the cove and the rainbows were more in the inlet of Bucks Creek.

They say don’t leave fish to find fish however my curiosity broke the rule. After a successful day around the Bucks Creek inlet I wanted to explore the Mill Creek inlet on the north side of the lake. I arrived at the Mill Creek day use parking after about 15-20 minutes of driving and quickly set-up my tube to get in some time before the thunderstorm off in the distance rolled in. The water in the Mill Creek cove was running much warmer at 63 degrees. The depth was about the same as the Bucks Creek inlet. I managed to get one brown trout to the tube and got about halfway to Mill Creek before I heard the first crack of thunder. Time was up. I quickly waddled along the shoreline until I got to the inlet of Mill Creek. I was surprised to find the inlet much smaller than I had imagined. The creek was flowing much stronger and faster than Bucks Creek making it impossible to fish. I made a few cast into mouth of Mill Creek but stopped once the thunder started getting louder.

The afternoon thunderstorm had kicked me off the water but I went back the following day and caught more some more fish before another predicted thunderstorm ended my time. I finally had some success at Bucks Lake and it was a quality over quantity trip. I am very much a catch-and-release fisherman however I couldn’t help but harvest my limit for my friends and family. I predict that the water will be too warm for trout in about two or three weeks. Now that I know when to fish Bucks Lake I’m looking to forward to many more trips in the future.

Bucks Creek, Bucks Lake, Grizzly Forebay

Exploring Bucks Creek and Grizzly Forebay

by Matt

Bucks Lake is one of the major lakes in the Quincy area that is fed by two main inlets; Mill Creek and Bucks Creek. The area around Bucks Lake is well-known for its vast outdoor recreation use and the fishing opportunities are plentiful. I’ve been to Bucks Lake a few times before however these visits were during the mid-summer when the water temperature was at its warmest. I’ve always had eyes for the Bucks Lake’s tributaries and thought they were probably be the best places to check out once they were opened the Saturday preceding Memorial Day. My hope was to be able to fish both Bucks Creek and Mill Creek to find myself some brook trout as I haven’t caught one in a few years. My findings were unexpected but in the end some good fishing came out of it.

Bucks Creek was the first stream that I wanted to check out. I arrived at the creek at around 11am and was a bit disappointed to find that it was running very low. I didn’t know what I was expecting since this was a drought year. I waded upstream a few yards and didn’t find anything so I backtracked down to the lake. The water level at Bucks Lake didn’t look too bad whereas there was still plenty of water near the outlet of Bucks Creek. There were several families out fishing closer to the bank that had caught a few small rainbows earlier in the morning. I observed a ton of splashy rising and was hoping I could get in on the action. I waded across the creek and took some time to try and figure out what the fish were rising for. It was of course an insect that I did not have in my river/stream fly box, the flying ant. I did my best with what I had, I took out a royal wulff, pinched off a bit of the white wing hair, and clipped off the tail. I did manage to get a few rises with my modified pattern but ultimately failed to hook any fish. I switched to an indicator setup with midges and had a few takes however still no hook ups. I checked my watch and noticed that I had spent way too much time trying to convince these fish to eat. I left fishless and off to check out Mill Creek.

Mill Creek is perhaps the inlet that feeds the most water to Bucks Creek. Although I’ve only seen it from a map view I believe that the flows are always decent no matter the conditions. I drove all the way around the lake to find no parking at the day use area. The only parking was way up before the campground area and I was not feeling up to walking all that way to get to the Mill Creek. During my drive to get to Mill Creek I noticed a sign for Grizzly Forebay that peaked my interested. Instead of calling it quits I decided make a change of plans and check out Grizzly Forebay.

I did quite a bit of researched for this trip and could not pull anything significant up about Grizzly Forebay. There was one fishing report of trout being caught there on dry flies several years ago and information about the trout being wild rainbows and browns but that was about all I could find. From Lower Bucks it took me about 30-40 minutes to get the parking of Grizzly Forebay powerhouse. Unfortunately the gate to get to the powerhouse itself was closed which meant that I had to hike up the hill about half a mile to get to the water.

My first sight of Grizzly Forebay was a good one as the water level was not as low as I was imagining. I grew a bit anxious as I neared closer and noticed that the powerhouse wasn’t running. My plan was to fish below it whereas fish are typically stacked in the current picking off whatever floats by them. The access to the water was a bit difficult seeing as there were a ton of willows throughout the steep banks. I made way up the powerhouse and spotted a few trout tailing the bottom. I put on a pheasant tail nymph with a zebra midge, classic stillwater patterns to imitate a callibaetis and midge larva, and made a few casts. After several casts I watched as a fish came out of nowhere and swiped my flies. I managed to land it and caught my first Grizzly Forebay brown trout.

I hoofed it around the powerhouse towards the inlet at Grizzly Creek and spotted a few fish rising in the shallows. I could see several rises throughout the channel so I switched to a callibaetis emerger. I caught a few on a dry and eventually switched to naked nymphing a pheasant tail. I had a field day catching rainbows with a brown or two mixed in for every couple of bows.

Although Bucks Creek and Mill Creek were a bust, Grizzly Forebay was pretty fun and I look forward to getting out there again next time with a float tube. I didn’t catch anything huge but I have a feeling that there are some lunkers out there just waiting to be caught.

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