Columbus Day At Camanche

Back on the 6th, I wrote about the down country lakes. Since then, I've heard a couple of good reports on the local forums about Camanche Lake, so I decided to give the North Shore a shot.
Left the house at the usual 0730 and after running a couple of errands (gas in the truck, coffee at Starbucks, and a stop at the auto store to pick up an air freshner, because the one I had was out and the truck smelled like fish) I headed out to Lake Camanche.

Got to the gate at 0845 and a spot to fish at 0900. Put out two lines with Power Bait and proceeded to set up my camping chair. I wasn't planning on too much physical fishing today. It was a holiday, after all.

Nothing much happened until 1000, then it started raining. Oh, I knew it could happen, but the weather guessers said most of the rain would be in the foothills which is the reason I went downhill rather than uphill. Huh, what do they know.

On a positive note, as soon as the drops started to hit the lake, the fish started feeding on the surface. I brought one rod in and put a gold 1/4 oz Kastmaster on my Okuma with 2# test and let it fly. Gold was not the color of choice, so I switched to Rainbow Pink (Kastmaster calls it Rainbow Trout color) and on the third cast, got a hit. When landed, the Rainbow was about a pound and a half and about 18 inches long. I didn't want to hold it very long. I wanted to put it back because it had a "sore" (best way I can describe it) on one side. The "sore" was about the size of a dime and looked like it was bleeding. I didn't think the fish would last long and thought it would be better to live the rest of its life back in the lake. I wasn't sure what the "sore" was, but didn't think human consumption would be a good idea.

After that, pink was no longer the color of choice so I switched to silver. The second hookup was somewhere in the area of about 2 or so pounds. I got to see the fish, but it decided it wanted to stay in the lake and threw my lure back at me. Then the rain got heavier. Fortunately it was a warm rain because I didn't have a rain coat, just my hoodie. I wasn't expecting rain, uphill remember.

I fished until Noon and finally gave in to the wet shirt, pants, and hoodie and called it a day. The only thing that I considered detremental to the lake was that the water was still pretty warm. I didn't have my thermometer, but would guess at the water temp being near 70 degrees at shore. My assumption (hate using that word, but it fits in this sentence) is that even if fish were caught, they would be "mushy" because of the warm temperatures. Good time of the year for catch and release though. Might be a good time of the year to put a float tube in the lake because there was a lot of surface action and some of them were pretty good size fish.

Going to try to get one more day in this week. Maybe go back to Camanche and put the Float Tube Cumberland in and trawl a rapala, now that I have a rod holder for the tube and throw a Thinmint or Wooly Bugger and see what I can scrape up.

I'll let you know if it happens. Till then.

Mark