Without proper planning, you could be locked out of your favorite lake...watching the sunrise from the parking lot!
Invasive species like Quagga and Zebra mussels and New Zealand Mud Snails are spreading at a rapid clip to lakes and streams throughout the West, and because of the threat these non-native critters pose to our water ways, you may soon find launching at your favorite lake more of a logistical hassle than ever before.
Local authorities are taking the threat very seriously, as these invaders are a really bad deal. In short, they are filter feeders which can completely alter entire ecosystems by removing phytoplankton from waterways — the stuff from which all other life begins. Also, they clear up the water, allowing sunlight to penetrate deeper, causing a proliferation of aquatic plants that can change species dominance.
To battle these guys, some lakes have completely banned all outside watercraft, while many others are requiring increasingly thorough inspections before you launch. Take one of my favorite fishing spots for example, Lake Tahoe. There, you have to pay for a complete inspection prior to launch (it was $30 for my little 14-foot skiff).
[click to continue…] 
Marvin Child with his record brown!
Mike Nielsen of
Tahoe Topliners is a very dangerous man…if you’re a brown trout, that is. This morning, he guided client Marvin Child to a new Lake Tahoe record brown trout. The fish weighed 15 pounds, 15 ounces and beats the previous mark of
15 pounds, 2 ounces, which was a fish that Nielsen guided a client to in 2008, which beat the previous record fish that…yep, you guessed it he guided yet another client to. Like I said, he’s a bad, bad man!
The latest record catch (which measured 36 inches), sucked down an F11 silver and black Rapala doused in Pautzke’s Liquid Krill.
The weather in Nor Cal is crazy! Today, it was 70 degrees and we’re supposed to get close to 80 this week. But just a few days ago, I was getting pummeled with an awe-inspiring amount of snow at Lake Tahoe. Squaw Valley is reporting a record 691 inches of snow (57.5 feet!!) this year and is going to remain open to skiing through the end of May and possibly into June!
While this doesn’t have much to do with fishing (though all this snow pack will really be great for the fish this summer and fall!), here’s a quick photo journey of the great March Blizzard! Click for more crazy snow pix
The Howe Ave. parking lot on the American River underwater
The calendar says “spring” but Northern California has been getting hammered by a series of huge winter storms all week which have delivered serious amounts of rain to the lower elevations and many feet of snow to the high country…the likes of which we haven’t seen since I was a kid.
Of course, all that weather isn’t without complications. Most Nor Cal rivers are raging and the reservoirs are full. The Sacramento River is currently running around 100,000 cfs and getting very close to flood stage. With all the snow in the high country, let’s keep our fingers crossed that there are no Pineapple Express-style warm storms heading this way! On a positive note, we should have plenty of water this year!
See more pix here 
A quick pic and then the fish went back into the lake!
Lake Tahoe big fish guru Mike Nielsen of
Tahoe Topliners has struck again! Just a little over a year ago, Mike guided an angler to the
lake record brown trout and now he checks in with a jumbo mack just ounces shy of 30 pounds.
The best part of this story (besides the fact that he released the fish) is how it was caught. We’ll let Mike tell the story…
[click to continue…]
Back when I used to run a 6-pack charter on Lake Tahoe, I always liked the late season kokanee salmon fishing. The fish would be stacked up for a few miles in either direction of the mouth of Taylor Creek, the lake’s main spawning tributary. The fish would usually be out in 350 to 500 feet of water and 75 to 90 feet below the surface. Often, the kokes were so thick that the fish finder couldn’t get a signal through ‘em and would show a bottom depth of say 84 feet when the actual lake bed was 200 plus feet below that..
The late fish always looked cool…in various stages of coloring up. As you can see, some would be chrome bright, while others were a little blushed up. Others still would be in full-fledged river spawning dress. Anyway, I just always thought this was kinda a cool pic. If you’d like to see photos of the fish up inside Taylor Creek, take a look at this Photo Essay I did last year.
by JD on January 20, 2010
Unnamed coho creek, Cordova, AK
Why do we fish? One of the big reasons for me is to have the opportunity to visit some of the amazing places that fish call home. Here’s a look at some of my favorites…
[click to continue…]
Beginning June 1, 2009, all boaters launching at Lake Tahoe will have to pay an inspection fee prior to getting their hulls wet.
Authorized March 26 by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board, the inspection program is an attempt to prevent the introduction of invasive species like quagga and zebra mussels.
These nasty buggers (the mussels, not the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency), can really ruin an ecosystem if they get established, which would mean Tahoe’s epic fisheries would likely suffer a huge hit.
[click to continue…]
