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Last week I wrote about Mike Nielsen from Tahoe Topliners, one of our local light-tackle gurus, and today I will present another Profile in Trout Fishing Obsession: Captain Gene St. Denis. Gene runs Blue Ribbon Fishing Charters, and he's been a good friend since we met last year and he hosted me aboard his boat for a story on trolling with dodgers (The Artful Dodger). Sure he's a friend you say, since he gets a nice write-up for taking me fishing, but this guy has also helped me fix some leaky plumbing in my bathroom, and always calls me with the 'brown trout bite report'. I think we get along so well because I'm nuts, and Gene is certainly a unique individual as well. Like me, he got into guiding because he truly loves and lives for fishing. Ask him about the monsters he's seen and broken off on Tahoe, or about his yearly hardcore backpacking trip for golden trout, or his secret lake, where he fishes through a thin layer of ice, tied by a safety rope to a tree on shore, just in case. Okay, maybe you'd better not ask about the secret lake; suffice it to say that there is not a captain on the lake who will work harder to put you onto fish.
Gene is also one of the few Tahoe captains who consistently catch big mackinaw, and he does so with two very different trolling methods. Utilizing these techniques he brought two macks over twenty pounds to the boat in a month this winter, then just a week after his last big one, I was on the boat to watch him catch yet another giant lake trout. Let's take a look at how the Gene hooks the big ones.
Then on March 10, Gene was fishing deep water with clients, when they hooked another hog, this one a little a little shorter, but pot-bellied and weighing over twenty-two pounds. Although trolling artificial lures near the surface can be more thrilling, it is less consistent for mackinaw on Tahoe than deep-trolling with live minnows behind dodgers or flashers. This is the method employed by the majority of charter captains here, but most of them catch very few jumbo macks this way. Gene, however, somehow beats the odds and brings in oversized fish quite often while trolling minnows. I won't give away all his secrets, here are a few keys to his deep-fishing success.
When we launched from Cave Rock the water was only slightly choppy, and we headed south, fishing several rocky, shallow areas without a bite. Gene then set up a shallow troll on the lake's south shore, over a sandy bottom with a steep drop to deep water. I had not fished this area before, and have never done well fishing on shallow sand, but soon after Gene lined up the boat and we let out our lines, the wind picked up, the waves grew, and we started hooking fish. When the first rod bent over in its holder, Gene told Ross to take it, and he brought in a four-pound mackinaw, on Gene's Bomber plug. After a few more minutes, we had a double, with both Gene's rod on the outside and mine on the inside kicking hard at exactly the same moment!
Ross took over the wheel and with Gene's coaching, aimed us out into the lake at just the right angle to allow us to gain line quickly and fight these fish over open water, yet not cross the lines. It quickly became apparent that these were bigger fish; mine was bulldogging and pulling short, rapid spurts of ten-pound fluorocarbon off my reel, while Gene's fish went off on a long, powerful run with his eight-pound Maxima. It took several minutes before either of us made any progress, but then my fish came in first and Ross netted a six-pound mackinaw that had hit my eight-inch AC Mag Shad plug and foul hooked itself along the back and head, causing it to come in sideways and feel bigger at first. Gene's fish showed no signs of slowing down for another fifteen minutes, then he finally brought it to the surface and Ross netted a twenty-two pound, thirty-seven inch mackinaw! Gene 'The Jaded Guide', was sweating and shaking with excitement. "You're like a kid at Christmas!" I told him. And he had said that he was not even going to fish, but Ross and I insisted he take a turn, which turned out to be a monster.
By now we were in waves that seemed huge to me, but Gene said "We're still fishing, just toodling along." We hooked and lost one more fish as I marveled at the stability of his nineteen-foot Alumaweld. "She's a riverboat! She can take some serious sh___!" he shouted over the roar of the wind, then he made me prove it to myself by having me drive at full throttle back to the launch ramp. He cranked up some hard rock music on the stereo and I held the steering wheel in a death-grip, getting a final thrill for the day as I rode over and slammed through the waves, throwing sheets of spray up over the windshield and covered cabin.
Don't get me wrong, Gene makes the safety of his clients his first priority, and in fact has saved the lives of several other boaters on Tahoe over the years. He provides fun, quality fishing trips for all, and would have quit earlier if he didn't have two friends who were serious anglers and experienced boaters aboard. He routinely takes out children and little old ladies, and just as routinely puts them on to the biggest trout of their lives. He's also an endless font of funny stories and offbeat witticisms, or Geneisms as I like to call them. Here are just a few pearls of wisdom he imparted during our trip-
Catching big mackinaw on light line: "It's called managing the fish. Turn the drag up, turn the drag down; which way is the fish running, what is the boat doing, what is the wind doing, why is your buddy drinking a beer when he's supposed to be getting the net?"
Fishing Tahoe in rough weather: "The bigger the boat, you bigger the trouble you can get into."
Marital Bliss: "Just tell her you love her, lie like a sack of potatoes and say you'll be home soon, then go fishing. Either that or make her so mad that she can't wait to get rid of you. And whatever you do, bring home some flowers."
Grumpy Clients: " Some people are on a path of pain. Like a porcupine walking around, poking everybody. Who wants to share the path with a porcupine?"
Inept Anglers: "Some guys couldn't reel in a sock if it was on their foot."
Miscellaneous: "You're like the cucumber in a jar of pickles!" ???????
For a great trip on Lake Tahoe, with a good chance for a real trophy, call Blue Ribbon Charters at (530) 544-6552
Guide Tip: Both Gene and I use Pro-Cure attractant scents on our lures when mackinaw fishing. Gene likes Pro-Cure Shrimp Sauce when fishing deep, and I applied Pro-Cure Trophy Trout Bait Butter to the lures on our great shallow-trolling trip. Look for a new line of Pro-Cure gel-scents this year; I will be field testing them and reporting my results in a future article.
Until Next Time!
Mark Wiza is a licensed fishing guide offering a variety of highly educational fishing trips in the Tahoe area. Hot trip for early spring is Mark's special Tahoe seminar, where he boards the client's boat for a day on the water, showing the angler how to catch fish on The Big Lake. Upcoming opportunities include fishing for big rainbow trout on Indian Creek Reservoir, ice-out trolling on Carson Pass area lakes, and the stream opener on April twenty-third. Call Tahoe Fly Fishing Outfitters toll-free at 877-541-8208 or Email Mark for details.
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On February 10, he was enjoying a rare 'fun trip', fishing by himself on Tahoe's north shore. Like me, when Gene is not on the water with clients, he prefers to use light tackle to troll the shallows with large minnow plugs. At 2:30 on a cloudy afternoon, he hooked a forty inch, twenty-three pound mackinaw, trolling a Bomber Long A Magnum plug on eight-pound-test Maxima line. He told me this was his sixth lake trout over twenty pounds personally reeled in on the lake. I say 'personally' because he's also put clients onto a couple of dozen lakers in the same class.
Then on March 18, Gene invited me to join him for a day of shallow trolling, and you'd better believe I was at his house, raring to go, at 8:30 am. I normally prefer to start shallow fishing at sunrise for the best bite, but the sky was dark with clouds and a strong breeze blew in ahead of an approaching snowstorm. "Big fish weather." remarked Gene; how right he was. His friend Ross Allen joined us as well, and we were a crack team, two trout guides and a tournament bass angler. Seriously, it was a good thing all on deck were experienced hands in the conditions we faced.
We continued fishing in deteriorating conditions, with Ross catching another average mack for his two-fish limit. I also switched to a Bomber plug for a while, catching another small mack, before switching back to the silver AC Mag Shad to hook and lose a fish between ten and fifteen pounds at the boat! It came to the surface and just shook the hook, giving me a thrill and a splash before diving out of sight.