First rule of Brown Trout Club is you don't talk about Brown Trout Club. Second rule of Brown Trout Club is you don't talk about Brown Trout Club.

But since I'm not in the club, I'm allowed to broach the subject. Here in Northern California, serious trout anglers go crazy for big browns, with some guys spending nearly every weekend of the year trolling for that elusive ten-pounder. Any trout this size is quite a catch, but browns are widely recognized as more intelligent and difficult to hook than other species, so they have achieved a special status, and spawned a cult of fanatics. Fistfights have broken out and friendships have been ruined over secret lures and secret lakes; I can remember taking some heat myself from the local guides a few years ago for writing 'tell-all' articles on my techniques for catching Tahoe Browns. Lately though, every time I spend a day on the water looking for big brown trout, I end up catching mackinaw instead. Let me tell you why I don't care.

They say size doesn't matter, but fishermen/women know better. In California lakes, the most abundant trout are usually rainbows, while browns are not just prized for their ability to avoid the sting of the hook, but for their size as well. These two qualities go hand in hand, as a smarter fish has a chance to live longer and grow to large size. The state record brown stands at 26 pounds, 8 ounces, caught in Upper Twin Lake in 1987, but a fish of ten pounds or greater is the generally accepted goal for dedicated anglers. Despite all the man-hours and effort put into the pursuit though, only a few brown trout of this size are caught each year, adding to the mystique. Much more common are large lake trout, also known as mackinaw; though 'macks' are confined to a small number of high altitude lakes in the state, ten-pound specimens caught annually probably number in the hundreds, with a handful of twenty-pound fish in the mix as well.

This abundance keeps mackinaw a rung below brown trout on the angler achievement ladder, with some fishermen dismissing the macks as 'lake carp', a less worthy opponent, and in fact a nuisance that chews up lures meant for browns, wasting precious fishing time. They might point out that mackinaw are technically not trout at all, but a closely related salmonid called 'char', and that these char are far less intelligent than brown trout, making them even less worthy of pursuit.

True! All of it, but I come from the less refined, 'whatever-tugs-on-your-line' school of fishing, so while waiting for that mighty ten pound brown to bend my rod, I'm content to catch 'net stinkers' twice as large. The best part of this approach is that you can fish for both species at the same time. Although mackinaw prefer colder water than browns and can be found hundreds of feet deep on lakes such as Tahoe and Donner, during much of the year they can also be caught in the shallows, in the same areas that hold browns. What's more, both species respond to the same techniques, with trolled minnow plugs accounting for many of the biggest fish.

I first learned this ten years ago, while traveling the shoreline of Fallen Leaf Lake in my canoe. Having just moved to the area, I followed the advice of local anglers and tried my luck for rainbows and browns, but found my most frequent catches were mackinaw. I soon learned that macks could also be caught this way on Tahoe, and for several years I was content with this generalized approach, pulling in whatever felt like biting that day. On Tuesdays I would fish Zephyr Cove for rainbows, and on Sundays, it was Logan's Shoals for mackinaw. While pursuing one species, I'd often catch the other, but the pattern I noticed most was that there was no pattern for brown trout. Though I caught some big browns, I would go months without seeing one, and a technique or area that worked for me on one trip could not be counted on to produce again.

So I began to see these fish in a new light; maybe there was something to this cult of the brown trout. Everyone wants what they can't have, especially after an occasional taste of what they're missing, so I started to focus on how, where and when to catch a big brown. Besides my canoe adventures, I was and still am an avid river angler, and in the late nineties my search for brown trout was satisfied by casting Rapalas and flies on the East Walker and Upper Truckee rivers. These were high-water years though, and as the fisheries began to suffer from drought after the turn of the century (doesn't that phrase make you feel old?), the big boys grew scarce, forcing me to look elsewhere to indulge my passion.

Always the student, I observed that while rivers can produce more consistent brown trout fishing, nearly all of the ten-pound-class browns in California are caught in lakes. Silver Lake in Amador County is known to produce big browns, and it's only 40 miles from my house, so I started fishing it hard, learning every inch of the shoreline and catching quite a few brown trout up to around five pounds. Then, in early May of 2002 I launched the canoe for another mission and just as windy conditions and waves were about to force me off the lake, I trolled one of my favorite brown trout lures and caught a twenty-two pound mackinaw, the lake record to this day. I know what you're thinking, and no, I didn't just weave this long narrative so I could brag; my point is that if you're fishing waters that contain lake trout, you might just hook a monster at any time.

Caples Lake is another with a reputation for large browns, and I've devoted many days there as well, trolling the shorelines for a trophy and catching, you guessed it, large mackinaw instead. My choice of lures of course has something to do with this; much of the time I troll the largest Rapalas, Bombers and AC Plugs up to eight inches long, but perhaps the lakes I fish are also just rotten with mackinaw. Looking for better brown trout water, over the last few years I've also investigated Stampede Reservoir. Stampede is known for quality browns, and also for a mid-morning wind that sweeps across the surface and puts small vessels like my canoe in serious jeopardy. I've been spanked at this spot several times, and though my reputation comes largely from fishing big lakes for big trout in a tiny little boat, I finally grew tired of getting blown off the water or canceling trips altogether, so this fall I decided to purchase a bigger boat. I still wanted something I could car-top, so that with help I could carry it in to lakes where the boat ramps are not open, and ideally also launch solo at lakes where I could pull down to the water's edge. After much research and even more pleading with my wife ("Honey, you know how you always worry about me in the canoe..."), I settled on a fourteen-foot Porta-Bote, a unique vessel that disassembles and folds flat for storage, yet is as stable as a comparable aluminum boat, while weighing substantially less.

Outfitting the Porta-Bote with a five-horsepower Briggs and Stratton four-stroke outboard and a trolling plate, by October I was finally ready to fish Stampede in choppy, sloppy conditions! After checking weather reports and purposely picking a day that called for a stiff breeze, I drove to the lake before dawn, arriving just as the sun rose to reveal completely calm, flat water. Aargh! My friend Aaron Fox and I didn't drive the sixty-miles from South Lake Tahoe for nothing though, so we fished hard, trolling AC Plugs and Rapalas to catch a few mackinaw, but not a single brown. When a breeze finally rippled the water in the early afternoon as we trolled in front of the dam, my rod started kicking, and as I fought a fish that pulled harder and ran faster than the mackinaw, I started to believe I had finally hooked a solid Stampede brown trout. As it neared the boat, I glimpsed a bronze flank and thick, square tail, but just as I yelled "Nice brown!" Aaron thrust the net in the water and lifted up a large small mouth bass! Curses! Foiled again! Aw what the hell, it really was a nice bass. I made it out to Stampede for another try in November, again picking a day predicted to be breezy, and yet again fishing on a mirror. This time I managed to catch two small browns and a few two-to-four-pound mackinaw on a rainbow Rapala and a black and silver AC Minnow. The water remained calm all day, and in the afternoon I observed kokanee salmon splashing and leaping in schools throughout the lake. After an hour or two without a bite on the plugs, I switched tactics, and by slow trolling through one such school with a gold dodger trailing a night crawler/salmon-egg combo, I picked up several chrome-bright, thirteen to fourteen-inch salmon, which I took home for dinner. Quite a fun fishing trip really, but I wasn't satisfied.

Then a series of early winter storms covered the access road and boat ramp to Stampede with snow, and a cold snap that brought record low temperatures to the region caused an early ice-in at Caples and Silver Lakes, so I resigned myself to chasing big fish once again on my home water, Lake Tahoe. In ten years of fishing the big lake by canoe, I had nearly always picked dawn patrol, not just for the hot early bite, but for the fact that mornings are consistently calmer here, and afternoons more windy. Now I had a boat that could handle a bit of wind and waves though, and waking to find early morning temperatures hovering around the zero mark, I decided to fish from noon until sunset instead. On Wednesday, December first I launched at Cave Rock and fished through a calm, sunny afternoon to catch several small rainbows and mackinaw while slow trolling dodgers and minnows. When a breeze came up around sunset though, I switched to fast-trolling plugs along the shoreline, and caught a fat, three-pound rainbow on a gold and black AC Skinny, then just before dark, I nailed a six-pound mackinaw on a rainbow Rapala Countdown.

Hmm, maybe I've been missing something with this afternoon bite I thought, so I went out again the next day, again catching plenty of small rainbows and mackinaw on live bait at mid-day, and again switching to plugs at sunset, to catch a thirty-inch, ten-pound mackinaw on a silver Bomber plug right at dark! I would have risked divorce and fished three days in a row, but another series of storms moved through the area, bringing snow and hurricane-force winds which turned the lake into a seething ocean for several days. As I've learned at Stampede, wind plays an important role in fishing success (or lack of it), but each lake is different, and one thing I've noticed on Tahoe over the years is that when we get a really good blow, to the point where even the largest charter boats stay off the water, the fishing can be excellent as soon as conditions improve enough to get back out there. Big fish seem to move around a lot in the worst weather, and I've caught some of my best Tahoe browns after storms.

So I watched the forecast closely on December eighth as the latest storm moved out finding that winds were predicted to howl all night then calm down substantially by morning. Backing down the Cave Rock boat ramp at 11:00 a.m., I noted a sporadic north wind and small waves, conditions that would probably have stopped me from launching my canoe, but not my new fantastic, plastic Porta-Bote! I set out and rode the waves south, pulling plugs in bright sunlight to catch and release a mackinaw of eight or nine pounds in the first half-hour! "Here we go again!" I shouted, but then the wind died, the lake flattened out, and as the day wore on without another bite, I switched to the old slow-troll, pulling live minnows behind silver dodgers and small Colorado-blade flashers to pick up several small rainbow trout. Just as I considered quitting early though, several hard gusts buffeted my vessel, then a steady north wind returned, quickly raising the calm surface back to a decent chop. This distracted me from my rods as I changed my trolling angle and picked up speed to stay on course, and at that moment a good fish took the minnow on my inside rod and ran hard, snapping the six-pound leader before I could react.

This of course called for another hour of minnow-trolling, but as I shook free another twelve-inch rainbow and the sun dipped behind Mount Tallac, I knew it was time to run big plugs. The small trout had given me inspiration for my lure choice, a seven-inch rainbow-trout pattern AC Minnow. This super-realistic plug has caught me only a couple of fish, but they were hogs! I tied it on to eight-pound test line and ran it on my outside line, hedging my bet with a six-inch Bomber plug on the inside rod. With both rods in their holders and 100 yards of line out, small whitecaps smacking my bow and full dark fast approaching, I was in the zone. Though I'd prefer that my psychic gifts extended to something more useful, like predicting the stock market or picking lottery numbers, I'll take what I can get. Trolling at three to four miles per hour over the same underwater rocks that had been producing small rainbows, at the magic hour, with the magic lures, I just knew something was going to happen, and then it did! My outside rod doubled over and line poured off the reel's spool against the lightly set drag. For about two seconds I considered that I might have hooked bottom, then the rate at which my line was disappearing increased dramatically, leaving me two more seconds to react as my spool emptied. Knowing I needed to chase this fish, I also knew that if I turned the boat around I would undoubtedly cross my other line and possibly end up with a tangle that would cause me to lose what was shaping up to be a monster.

Well, I went from psychic genius to fishing idiot as fast as I could throw my motor into neutral then reverse, attempting to back down on the fish. As my stern smashed into the waves, I realized they were big enough to come in over the transom, and gallons of forty-five degree water poured into the boat, causing it to ride lower and take on even more water. Not quite willing to trade my life for a fish, I slammed the motor back into forward gear and turned out into the lake, setting my bow back into the waves. Yes, I crossed my lines, and yes, they tangled, but the fish was still on! Pulling sections of the loose line to my mouth and biting through them, I managed to clear the 'live' line and give chase. Luckily the beast had headed not into the shallow rocks but out into deeper water, where I fought it over a bottom of flat sand, giving me a chance to actually bring it in on such light line. For twenty minutes in nearly complete darkness, I worked on what could only be a huge mackinaw while constantly throwing my motor into gear to steer my bow back into the waves, then back into neutral to avoid breaking the line. I had the fish close to the boat five times, only to have it dive again for the bottom.

On the sixth try it floated to the surface just within reach of my long handled net. Scoop, dump, and throttle up! Racing at full speed to get back to the ramp before my boat sank, I slid my bow onto the concrete and pulled a flashlight out of my coat pocket, then switched it on and stared in wonder and horror at the full extent of what I'd done. Tangles of line floated in a full six inches of water sloshing on the floor of the boat. My tackle bag and daypack were bobbing, half-submerged, and when I fished out the pack I realized I had soaked my cellular phone and digital camera, ruining both! But I didn't care! I wrestled the still thrashing fish out of the boat and carried it up to the parking lot, where I laid it down and took my first good look at my catch. Wow! I knew it was big, but... Wow! Excuse me if a poetic description fails me at this point. I measured and weighed it to find it was 39 inches long and just over 25 pounds!

Soaked and shivering, I packed up my gear and boat, stopping frequently to warm my hands in front of my truck's heater vents. By this time the tackle shops were all closed, so I stopped at Safeway to ask the butcher to weigh my fish again on his certified scale. They've done this for me in the past, but this time they refused, citing new FDA regulations. Damn the government and small-minded store managers! So I took the fish on a little tour, first to my house to show my family. My wife took pictures with a disposable camera and I weighed it again on my digital bathroom scale, where it came up lucky number twenty-five again. Then my fish and I drove to my friend Aaron's house, where he took more pictures with his digital camera, since I had destroyed mine. Finally I returned home, where I cleaned the monster mack, which felt more like butchering a hog. Half-digested in its stomach were two twelve-inch rainbow trout, affirming my decision to troll the rainbow-pattern AC Plug http://www.acplugs.com/ , and proving that the fish eating the AC was no coincidence.

So once again, it wasn't a big brown trout. It was, however, the second largest mackinaw I've heard of on Tahoe this year, and in asking other guides and anglers, it seems to be the largest topline-caught Tahoe fish anyone's ever heard of here! The mighty mackinaw fed five families, earned me a picture and caption in the sports section of the Tahoe Daily Tribune and will live on forever in the photos and my memory. "My greatest achievement" sounds sort of stupid if you're not an avid angler, but if you've read this far, you know stupid works for me.

Bonus Report: Stampede Brown Trout- I figured I'd just wait until next spring to try and crack the code at Stampede, but I had the good fortune to be invited for one more trip by Tim Friese, a dedicated brown trout hunter who I met through the message boards here on the Fishsniffer website. Tim has been fishing this lake hard all year, but until recently he's only caught browns to four pounds. In his last few trips though, he and his brother Bruce have been banging some brownies in the six-pound class, and I jumped at the chance to meet them and learn a few new secrets.

If you think catching browns is tough, you should try just getting into Stampede right now. The access road is covered by a thick layer of hardened snow, with deep icy ruts. High-centered four-wheel-drives are the only vehicles besides snowmobiles that can make it, and I had a few scary moments in my Isuzu Rodeo as I drove in to meet Tim and Bruce on December sixteenth. Catching up to Tim's truck at the dam, I followed him to the parking lot at the top of the boat ramp, and pulling out of the ruts to park my truck, I quickly became stuck.

Remember what I said about brown trout anglers being a bit crazy? These guys fit the bill. They slid trailers in like sleds behind their trucks, opting for safety in numbers with two boats and vehicles. Backing down the boat ramp required not only four-wheel-drive, but chains on all four tires as well, and they still barely made it. Bruce launched alone in his boat, and I fished with Tim. We hit the water right at sunrise, and he zipped through fog to a spot across the lake, using a compass to guide our way. He explained our strategy, which would be to troll Rapalas in very shallow water, and not ten minutes after implementing this plan, Tim had the best fish of the day, a six-pound, hook-jaw brown! Always stubborn, I refused to use the same size and pattern of lure, so I caught nothing while Tim caught four more two to four pound browns and lost several others. I drove the boat for two of his fish, so I didn't feel too bad, but by mid-day I finally swallowed my pride and used the same size Rapala, catching one three-pound brown and losing two more before we quit. All of our fish hit when we held our rods and swept the tips forward and back, imparting a darting motion to the lure. This technique, often referred to as 'ripping', seems to really trigger browns to bite. Interestingly, Tim's brother Bruce kept his rods in the holder and simply steered his boat in tight zig-zags, catching a few less browns, but picking up a mackinaw and two big rainbow trout while we caught only one species.

While I won't share all their secrets, I will reveal that these guys trolled a significantly shorter line than I normally use. On Tahoe, trolling plugs on 300 to 450 feet of line is standard, but Tim and Bruce let out only 200 feet, which kept their lures running shallow and allowed them to cut in tight to shoreline points and drops without hanging up. I was amazed to see that most of our fish were caught in eight feet of water or less. I also found Tim's choice of fish attractant scent interesting. I'm a great believer in adding scent to lures; the AC Plug that caught my big mackinaw the week before was covered in Pro-Cure http://www.pro-cure.com/ Trophy Trout Bait Sauce, but Tim uses and swears by Pro-Cure Garlic Oil for brown trout. I've never seen much sense in using food scents such as garlic or anise (licorice) to attract fish, but in this case it really seemed to work. Plus, if you keep a fish now and then, it's already marinated- Trout Scampi!

While we caught most of our fish on floating Rapalas, Tim hooked one on a gold AC Plug, and his biggest brown this fall came on a silver AC given to him at the boat ramp by AC Plug Pro Staffer Scott Marton. Thanks guys, for a great trip, and for hooking up the tow straps to pull my truck out at the end of the day. Can you say Hard Core?

Until Next Time!
Mark (The Fishsniffer) Wiza
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Pro Staff for AC Plugs and Pro-Cure Bait Scents