The Boys had this week off so I decided to take Weds. off in order to beat the rain coming in on Friday. We left the house early Weds morning for the 75 minute drive to Collins Lake. I have been reading about the lake for a couple years now. The lake is heavily stocked with pan size and trophy sized trout. Three large loads of trophy trout were planted during the past 3 weeks so I figured this would be a great time to go. NOT!
We arrived to see the lake very low and there were a handful or so boats trolling the lake. As we waited in line to launch our boat (4 wheel drive only launch ramp) we saw no fish caught by the trollers. We launched and fly fished the dam then moved around the lake to try an find some fish. We trolled a bit too but to no avail. We still saw no boats with any fish. It was about 11 am when we decided make a move and hit Lake Oroville on the way home.
Lake Oroville is now at 25% capacity so the Spillway ramp is the only ramp open and it’s 4 wheel drive only too. We launched and headed north but the lake is so low that there were not much structure to be found. We noticed that every rock pile we stopped at produced a few fish BUT there were not many rock piles or rocky areas.
The boys ended up landing 14 fish in 3 hours with a few others dropped. The largest was 17 inches. Most of the fish came on KVD jerk baits.
Glad we made the stop at Oroville or it would have been a skunked day!
