Collins Lake

We’ve seen a number of good catches and overall still more trout than bass or crappie but its clear that he trout are not immune to the constant unabated heat of the last two weeks. It is possible to bring in a limit but even Don Feryance, who earlier this month limited eight days in a row is coming up with partial stringers.

At the same time there’s been an uptick in the number of catfish and crappie visiting the scales. At the top of the leaderboard, Eric Crow sent a picture of a 12.2 pound catfish his wife Renee reeled in. This monstrosity was drawn in by the scent of sardines right out in front of campsite #412. Just to the left of them by site #408 Lucky Williams from Richmond pulled up a 5 3/4 pound cat on worms. Joe from Vacaville didn’t have chicken livers so he tossed out a hotdog-on-a-hook from the shore near Elmer’s cove and caught a 3 pounder for his efforts. As the runoff slows for the summer some catfish that had been hiding in coves and corners will migrate up the channel toward the inlet, that’s where Tristan and Aaron Smith caught a pair, weighing in at 5 and almost 7 pounds.

I don’t have a whole lot of pictures of crappie but I can tell you they are biting. My bait of choice would be red worms, which I didn’t have last Saturday evening when I took my kids and nephew and niece out for a sunset cruise on the patio boat. It was last minute and the Collins Lake store was out of Redworms so I was stuck with whatever bait was left on the boat, PowerBait and salmon eggs. All evening long we just had nibbles while, I kid you not, 30 feet off our bow my buddy in another boat was pulling up a crappie on a redworm about every 3 minutes. He felt so sorry for us that he passed a pole our way. The kids were having fun even before we hooked a fish but man, there’s nothing like knowing what the right bait is and not having it.

Of course not everyone agrees with me, my fish photo log says Chris Holsey from Yuba City caught 25 crappie down by the dam on nightcrawlers. Some people think the only difference between a nightcrawler a mini-crawler and a redworm is the color of the label on the can but my perception is that the crappie seem to care. Chris if you’re reading this email me fishing@collinslake.com and tell me if whoever wrote nightcrawler on the picture log meant redworms. Whatever the bait was, at least the picture proves the panfish are peckish although suspiciously missing from my notes in this last two weeks are crappie jigs.  Has no one tried?

UPDATE from Chris 6/29/2018:  

“Yes, I was using redworms for the crappie. When the girl at the store asked I just said worms… She must have just assumed nightcrawlers. And you’re absolutely right about differences in worms. I catch the giant 2lb+ Redear in your lake and the only thing they will eat for me is mini crawlers. I’ve thrown redworms and normal night crawlers in the same bed area and they just ignore them.”

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Always with a smile and never without a trout, it’s just the Norm (and the Vick)

I told you the trout have been slow for a couple weeks and while we’re not seeing as many limits we have seen quite a number of one to three pound trout come in off the shore on PowerBait, worms and KastMasters. Among them Kai Ketcham, Alex Christensen, Derek Buickerood and Jim & Terry Mercurio. And John Marvin showed off what looks like about a six pound rainbow.  Norm from Lincoln was back with his friend Vick and they were fishing from his boat as usual but this time pulled up four trout including a 6 pounder up by the bridge. Steve Morgan and his friends teamed up to show us that with a downrigger and patience you can have success, catching five trout trolling kastmasters way down at 35’.

I’ve noticed among the trout that have come up, a few bass mixed in here and there, consistent with the post spawn spread. John & Hannah Herrera caught two fishing from the bank with worms and just this morning Scott Trujillo from Vacaville brought in two more on live crawdads. I have a friend who was doing well with rubber worms a few days ago, she was fishing the bay on the east side. But my favorite picture is this 4 pound largemouth Chai Saephn caught by the dam, on a watermelon seed jig. What a beauty!

The fish are out there, if you have downrigger and time you might try trolling deep for trout. Otherwise it seems throwing powerbait or kastmasters by the dam, a cove or the north end may be just as well. If the trout are slow consider trying something new, like catfish in the evening or fishing for bass with crawdads or using a jig with a funny name.

Finally a big congratulations to Jake Cena who made the biggest catch of his life, down on one knee with a half inch ring out on the dam.  Lizzie said yes!  We wish you all the best and many more happy memories here at Collins Lake.