Collins Lake

The last month has, for the most part, been excellent for winter camping with lots of t-shirt weather days, a 100% full lake and decent fishing is hard to beat. If you’ve never done a last minute winter camping trip, it’s time to give it a try!

We’ve been planting trout all winter- in fact, 8000 pounds over just the last 4 weeks. Keep an eye out for sunny days and low winds- especially Monday-Thursday when there’s typically not much of a crowd on the shoreline!

In the first half of February the trout bit had been a little sluggish but now that the water has settled out some and weather has been mostly stable, things have begun to pick up. Most of the catching has been in the top 15ft and lots of people are reporting success with PowerBait, typical for these lake conditions- though some folks are still catching with lures. Leo & Jaelyn of Marysville (above) cause this 6 3/4 pound Rainbow Trout on a Golden flasher/spoon from their boat about 15ft down on the far side of the dam.

Zack, Ethan & Valerie from Oroville reeled in 13 trout from a boat in Elmer’s cove using PowerBait. Zack and Ethan returned later in the week for a double limit switching out the PowerBait for marshmallows and nightcrawlers.

Syrina & Jacob Doria brought in five trout including two lightning trout and three rainbows all caught at the south end of the lake near the dam using PowerBait. Aubree (and Jason) of Woodland reeled in one trout, her First Fish (!) using garlic red Powerballs by the dam- Great catch!

Ray Adams of Grass Valley landed two big rainbow trout by the dam with garlic PowerBait. Jayden caught a good sized golden rainbow “lightning” trout dragging a mini crankbait near Goose Island. James Mattlock caught his 7-pound fish not far from the Main Marina casting a Panther Martin lure.

Jacob, Ali & Wyatt drove out from Winters to catch this loaded stringer including a lightning trout and a super chunky 9.5 pound Rainbow Trout. Looks like that brag board is almost to heavy to lift!

Finally, we’ve been hearing that bass activity has been heating up early- perhaps a product of so many sunny days over the last couple weeks. California Bass Angler Kong Moua caught this 20″ bass on ???? down by the ????. It’s a beautiful fish anyway! If you bass fishermen are doing C&R snap a pic while you’re out on the water and send it our way: fishing@collinslake.com

We’re looking forward these last couple weeks of the winter season and things are looking primed for a super spring- we still have over 15,000 pounds of trout scheduled and that’s not including net pen releases (raised at Collins Lake). If that wasn’t enough, the Ice Cream Freezer is fixed and working better than ever- we’ve got 23 flavors on the board. See you here!