Horseshoe Lake, How Do I Fish This

How Do I Fish This: Horseshoe Lake

by Matt

Horseshoe Lake is a shallow turbid pond that is located along Wildwood Avenue in Upper Bidwell Park. This pond was originally built as a reservoir in the 1930s to irrigate the Bidwell Golf Course but was abandoned due to the cost of maintenance.

This pond is stocked with channel catfish every year for the annual Hooked-On-Fishing event that usually takes place in May. Due to the limited clarity of the pond the majority of anglers who fish Horseshoe Lake use bait.
Bait fishing works well for the catfish that inhabit Horseshoe Lake but fly fishing will grant you the opportunity to catch the big three; largemouth bass, channel catfish, and carp.

The very limited fishing opportunities in Chico (BCC closed during the spring, Butte Creek closed most of the year) made Horseshoe Lake the only nearby body of water that I could legally fish during the spring. This lake was very challenging to learn with a fly rod however once I cracked the code the rewards were amazing.

Open Season
A) Opened all year around.
*Ages 12 and under can catch-and-keep
*Ages 12 and older catch-and-release
*Although not enforced very well, Horseshoe Lake is catch-and-release for adults. Please release your fish so that children can enjoy a great fishing experience.

Access Points

  • Horseshoe Lake is located in Upper Bidwell along Wildwood Avenue off of East Avenue. 


Fish Species
Largemouth Bass
Channel Catfish
Carp
Bluegill
Goldfish
Crappie

Gear
6WT Fast Action Rod
Floating Line
5ft – 7ft #10 Mono leader

Chenille Minnow

Fly Patterns

  • Chenille Minnow #6 – 8
  • Woolly Bugger #4 – 8
  • Chartuese Egg #4 – 6
  • Adams Midge #16 – 18

Techniques
Why is Horseshoe Lake so challenging?
The fish in Horseshoe Lake primarily hang out near the bank and structure. They are extremely wary and have adapted to using their other sense due to the turbidity. If you walk along the bank you will sometimes see the left over ripple of a spooked fish. They will see you before you see them.
Visitors often walk their dogs along the lake which can also spook the fish. Why visitors let their dogs jump into Horseshoe’s dirty water I’ll never know…
Figuring out which fly pattern to use when there is zero clarity can be very difficult.

Largemouth Bass: The best time to fish Horseshoe Lake for bass is between March – May. Once the water temperature is above 55°F the largemouth will begin moving closer to the banks. The winter runoff should have increase the size of the lake and bring the water closer to vegetation along the banks. Target the coves and fish around structure. I tend to catch more bass early in the season rather than later.

Channel Catfish: Catfish can be caught during the warmer days before the Hooked On Fishing event. Channel cats are the most common catch at Horseshoe Lake. Fish near structure and drop-offs to find these hard fighting fish.

Carp: Have you ever wanted to fish shallow flats for monster carp? Horseshoe Lake is the only place so far where I have found anything close to this experience. The lake is relatively shallow which creates the opportunity to find these golden ghosts tailing near the flat banks.
Encountering a Horseshoe Lake carp is mostly based on luck; some days will provide ample opportunities to cast to these fish, other days will have no carp activity whatsoever.
Look for these fish in the afternoon or evening during hot windless days in April or May. The carp in Horseshoe Lake only eat one fly pattern, the chartreuse egg. Tie these in a size 6 or 4 and make sure you soak it up with water before presenting them. Cast ahead of them and then slowly strip your fly to their location. This is extremely difficult fly fishing but very rewarding.

Strip dark flies near the bottom and cover as much water as you can. Once the fly is about a rods length away, slowly lift the fly up. Most of the takes are during the lift. The takes are often subtle so set the hook on everything. The east and north end have been the most productive side for fly fishing.

You will lose a lot of flies at Horseshoe Lake therefore I suggest using simple patterns.
A pattern that I’ve come up with that catches both largemouth and catfish at Horseshoe is the chenille minnow. The chenille minnow matches the abundant mosquito fish that inhabit the lake.
A double streamer rig can work wonders if you don’t mind losing a few flies. Fishing two streamers gives the fish another chance to grab your fly if it happens to miss the first offering. A hook sharpener is also very useful when fishing Horseshoe Lake.
Once the Hooked-On-Fishing event happens the lake is done for the year. Fly fishing becomes extremely poor and it takes the rest of the year for the lake to recover from the extreme pressure, trashing, and fish-kill.

Big Chico Creek, Horseshoe Lake

Big Chico Creek June Opener; Horseshoe Lake Fishkill

by Matt

BCC Alligator Hole I’ve explored and fished a bit of the upper, middle, and lower watershed of Big Chico Creek, but my favorite section to fish is the lower section. The lower watershed from the mouth to Bear Hole is unique in that it opens in the middle of June and closes the same day trout season ends in November. This section hosts mostly warm-water fish but salmonoids can be found in the deep holes in Bear Hole waiting to spawn in the fall. During the dog days of summer when I don’t feel like driving all the way up to the Sierras to fish, I wet my line at Big Chico Creek.

The lower BCC (Big Chico Creek) watershed from the mouth up to Chico is a small slough that is turbid and weedy. I’ve seen some decent largemouth taken out of this area but have yet to fish it. There is a BCC recreation unit on River road that has a small boat launch by the bridge. The creek is very narrow here making a kayak or tube a more suitable watercraft.

BCC from the city of Chico upstream to Bearhole is the area I have the most experience fishing. The creek runs through Bidwell Park making it very easy to access around Upper Park, Five Mile, and Lower Bidwell. From what I’ve observed over the years, the species of fish I’ve found in this section during the summer are smallmouth, pike minnow, sacramento suckers, and bluegill. The smallmouth are by far the most abundant fish in this section and they are an absolute thrill to catch. Smallmouth fishing on BBC is a game of sight, stealth, and focus. If fishing above the fish you need to be low or else they will not take, especially the bigger fish. When the fish take the fly 90% of the time they suck it up rather than strike it. If you can’t see the fish eat, you need to pay close attention to your line because as soon as it becomes tight you need to set the hook.  The smallmouth out there average about 8-10” but I’ve caught a few mama 14”ers that put a real bend in my rod.

Arming myself with my 2wt, I like to throw small poppers and frogs for all day topwater action. If fishing subsurface, the pattern I’ve had the most success with is a size 6-8 tan krystal bugger. During evenings in Late July – August there is a good caddis hatch that get the smallmouth feeding like trout so if your looking for technical dry fly action during the summer then this is a good place to hit. From my experience, smallmouth are harder to convince to eat a dry fly during a hatch than trout.

Big Chico Creek Opener
The opener this June 16th was great. Luckily there weren’t a whole lot of people out on the creek leaving me one of my favorite holes all myself. When fishing the afternoon like I was, the smallmouth can get finicky when the sun is on the water. They will often hide in the shade to get away from the heat and be reluctant to bite a fly in open water. A little bit of everything was working however poppers and buggers were the favorite.

When fighting smallmouth I find that they like to pull rather than run. The smallmouth in BCC will jump at least once during the fight and its freakin awesome. Pure, simple, fun.

Horseshoe Lake
After the is lake is stocked full of catfish for the annual “Hooked On Fishing” event, it experiences a huge amount of fishing pressure. The extreme fishing pressure turns the lake into a garbage dump littered with trash. Fishing line, bait containers, plastic bags, and food wrappers can be found all over the lake. But perhaps, the saddest and worst thing that happens to the lake after the stocking is that it experiences a huge fish kill. After about a week after the stocking you will begin to find several dead catfish and carp near the bank. The chemical imbalance of the lake mixed in with the heat of the summer creates the perfect death trap choking and killing fish.

My trips to the lake dwindle down at this point because the catfish and bass stop biting. Due to the weird weather we had during the spring, the carp have become active later this year. I’ve been seeing them wallowing around in the tall grass near the bank but I haven’t been able to get a fish to take. Whether they were feeding, cruising, or dropping eggs I don’t know. All I know is they weren’t looking to eat my fly.

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Keep Calm and Fly Fish™