Ellis Lake

Attempting To Track The Ellis Lake Prespawn

Almost Ready To Fish
Ellis lake is a tricky lake to pattern. The lake sees a lot of pressure during the warm months in the spring, summer, and fall and depending on the timing of the year, certain species will either turn on or off. With a week of warm 70 degree weather, the largemouth should have turned on but I haven’t found them yet.
Gear anglers who fish Ellis like to throw their lures and plastics parallel to the rocky sidewalk. They often throw pretty close to the bank targeting fish in the shallows about 1ft – 2ft deep. This strategy makes sense but I rarely see them hook up. Why is this?
A few things they may be doing wrong is covering water too quickly, not covering enough depth, or making the wrong retrieve. I enjoy observing and trying to understand why other anglers are or aren’t catching fish. If they aren’t successful I won’t imitate if they are I will copy. 
Testing My New S4 On Ducks
When I fish Ellis Lake I throw my flies perpendicular away from the bank rather than along it. Although it takes longer to cover water I can hit each depth column much more efficiently: throw my flies across, wait for it to sink, retrieve, take two steps, rinse and repeat. Fishing perpendicular can also help you avoid catching the smaller species that like to hang out in the snag rocks closer to the banks.
Fish Crack

The bank of Ellis is a sidewalk that is made up of broken concrete. Not every part of the bank is made the same way therefore different species of fish will hold in different locations. I have been fishing different depths using different retrieves in different locations with different flies but I haven’t been able to track the prespawn pattern. The bass should be turning on any time now and I will be there when they do.

My guess is that when I start catching or finding bluegills I will begin catching bass. As of right now it’s still a waiting game. 
Yuba River

Mama Said Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This

Epic Yuba Blowout

The biggest Yuba blowout within the last three years finally happened with the river reaching over 15,000 CFS within a 24-hours. Although the previous 10,000 CFS blowout was decent, this one was able to create a few new contours that will be interesting to fish.

New Sand Bank

The flows have stabilized a bit but the river is still muddy and recovering. As I hiked around I noticed a lot of areas with vegetation facing downstream. From what I observed throughout the day, the flows must have gotten crazy high reaching most of the willows close to the banks. The fish will be eating well.

Right Place. Wrong Fish

I was able to get four hook ups with one landed by high-sticking the seams. The first three felt like nice sized trout that I couldn’t bring out of faster water. The last hook up was a beatis eating sucker  that was fun to land.

With a great warming forecast for the next two weeks, I will start focusing on figuring out the warm-water pattern of Ellis Lake. The prespawn will be on and I’m going to catch me a monster out of the crap hole.

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