The lake also hosts good populations of big Florida-strain largemouth bass, channel catfish, crappie and bluegill. Although I love fishing at the Mother Lode lakes, Don Pedro is definitely my Gold Country favorite because I have experienced superb kokanee, king salmon and rainbow trout fishing on the majority of trips that I have made here.

Monte Smith of Gold Country Sportfishing has been catching steady limits of king salmon, with some rainbows and kokanee mixed in, on his trips to Don Pedro this year. Though we didn't get any huge monsters like the 6-1/2 pound king that one of Smith's clients caught on March 12, we found fast action on kings ranging from 12 to 19 inches during a trolling adventure on March 31.

Monte, his dad Don and I got on the lake around 7:15 am, launching out of the Blue Oaks Recreation Area launch ramp. We started trolling within five minutes, since the "hot spot" was the area from the dam to Mexican Gulch, located near the launch ramp.

Smith put out his 7' 6" St. Croix kokanee rods teamed with Shimano Calcutta 100 B reels. We set Sting Kings, rolled shad, and Excel lures at depths of 60 to 80 feet on his Cannon electric downriggers. Dozens of grebes were diving for bait where we stopped. "The grebes push the shad into the coves, where the salmon and trout ambush them," said Smith.

The first rod to get hit was the one with the shad. I grabbed the rod, popped it off the downrigger and a scrappy 14 inch salmon came flying out of the water once I got the fish near the surface. Smith netted the fish and we released it. "It may not be big, but we got our first fish in the boat," I commented.

For the next several hours, the action was pretty wild. Monte, Don and I hooked fish after fish, releasing the smaller ones and putting the larger ones in the ice chest. The most exciting part of the trip was when Don and I had a double hook-up with the two largest kings of the day.

"This feels like a better fish than the ones we've hooked so far," I told Monte as the salmon made a big run, pulling lots of line off the reel. We finally got it in the net. It measured 19 inches long and was the largest fish we boated.

Meanwhile, Don was fighting an even bigger fish. He got it right up to the surface behind the boat, but unfortunately, the fish popped the hook before Monte was able to secure it in the net. We had a slow period around mid morning, but then we encountered another decent bite from noon to 2 pm. We caught well over 25 fish, releasing the smaller salmon and one rainbow.

We ended up keeping 12 salmon ranging from 13 to 19 inches and two holdover rainbows measuring 14 inches each. The overall hottest bait was the black/white Excel lure, followed by the rolled shad. It was a great way to finish off the month of March - with excellent fishing, superb spring weather and outstanding company! "This is looking to be a great year for big fish at Don Pedro," said Smith. "Normally you don't catch the larger fish in March, when we caught the 6-1/2 pounder. Last year our largest king weighed 5 pounds and many of the fish were in the 3 to 4 pound range."

Before the salmon bite took off in March, Smith was experiencing top-notch action on rainbows in the 1 to 3 pound range while troling UV Apex lures and nightcrawlers behind Sep's Flashers.

Monte expects the kokanee salmon action to heat up by mid-April and spring. During April, May and June, you can often find good fishing for king salmon, kokanee and rainbows all on one trip.

Don Pedro can turn into a maelstrom of recreational boaters and water skiers during the heat of the summer, but on spring mornings the lake has relatively little fishing pressure. With 160 miles of shoreline and 13,000 surface acres, there are plenty of areas on the lake to get away from the crowd.

Unlike the king salmon in the other lakes in California, the fish in Don Pedro spawn successfully, as was evidenced by the solid fishing for kings that anglers experienced during the late nineties after the lake hadn't been planted with salmon by DFG for several years.

However, the DFG supplements the natural population of kings with plants every year. The Department stocked 70,015 fingerling chinooks in Don Pedro in 2006.

The kokanee population is one of the healthiest in California waters, with natural spawning producing the overwhelming majority of the fish. However, the DFG made a supplement plant of 4,016 fingerling kokanee into the lake in 2006 and 10,143 this spring.

Besides fishing Don Pedro, Smith also guides at New Melones and Tulloch reservoirs. To book a trip with Monte Smith of Gold Country Sportfishing, call (209) 848-2746. Other guides fishing Don Pedro include Bruce Hamby of Sierra Sportfishing at (209) 599-2023 and Danny Layne of Fish'n Dan's Guide Service at (209) 586-2383.