Yes, it's that time again folks, time for another installment of Secrets Of Lake Tahoe. In today's episode, I will reveal the latest and greatest strategies for success on the big lake, then tomorrow I'll see a bunch of guys out there catching all my fish and I'll curse myself for opening my big cakehole. Come to think of it, let's get right to the most important tip of all, if you want to experience consistent action on Tahoe- be here now! Here's how:

1) Move here so you can go out on the lake all the time. Buy a 1963 fixer-upper three bedroom ranch for a cool half million, and get an eight-dollar-an-hour job then do the math.

2) Not for you? Option two would be to use your family's wealth and privilege to move here anyway and not work at all, opting instead for grueling classes like 'interpretive dance' and 'great films of the seventies' at Lake Tahoe Community College. I've met many such dreadlocked young Trustafarians here, but they're generally too stoned for serious fishing. Snowboarding maybe, trolling, no.

3) If neither of these scenarios is realistic for you, you'll need to drive up here from your hometown, adding extra hours and substantial cost to each trip, then in the limited time available try to learn how to fish a twenty-two mile long, sixteen-hundred foot deep lake.

Okay, so you've picked option three and you're here, pulling into say, Cave Rock State Park with your trailered boat, looking for the ramp. If it's summer time, now is when you might want to pop a Valium, as there will be at least six boats ahead of you waiting to launch. The first guy will have forgotten to put his drain plug in so he'll either pull back up the ramp to let all the water run out of his boat, or sink it completely a few yards out, causing an emergency situation that will close the ramp for hours.

Assuming he figures out his dilemma in time, the next boater will find the vessel that 'ran fine last year' has a dead battery, and he'll go around soothing the angry crowd by asking for a jump-start. Next comes the family that actually gets the boat in the water correctly (after five tries), then dad ties to the dock, blocking the next boat from launching, while mom decides to make the sandwiches right there, and they discover that little Jimmy needs to toddle 100 yards to the bathroom and go poop (he's just learning to walk you know, how cute!).

Have I painted you a rosy enough summertime picture? Nevada actually has extra personnel on duty at Cave Rock in summer, just to cut down on fistfights. They hand out a helpful flyer that explains boat launching etiquette on busy days- "Boats launching have right-of-way in the morning, and boats landing have right-of-way in the afternoon. You may cut in line to land only in an emergency. Seasickness is NOT an emergency." Seriously, they have to explain this stuff to people. If you're seasick, get sick in the sea; puking doesn't feel any better in the parking lot, and it looks a hell of a lot more stupid, because on land the main excuse for adult vomit is alcohol poisoning.

Let's assume you heed my warning and decide to skip the warm weather madness, trying your luck in the off-season instead. Say you've decided to come up and fish in winter, because a certain outdoor writer said the bite was good. First, you'll need to watch the weather closely to see if a storm is expected.

Big deal you say, so there might be some snow on the mountain passes. Maybe it'll take four hours instead of two to drive up from Sacramento; maybe you'll need to put chains on your truck... does a boat trailer require chains on the wheels? (www.caltrans.ca.gov). Does the Nevada Department Of Transportation plow the Cave Rock boat ramp? (www.NO!) They plow the whole parking lot, except the ramp- government working for you! My friend Gene St. Denis from Blue Ribbon Charters hauls his snowblower down to the ramp when we have a big storm, so the professionals, hardcores and foolhardy can launch. Thanks Gene!

Did you know many boats that run fine in 70 degree temperatures at sea level have trouble starting and running at near zero above 6,000 feet? In these conditions plastic parts on boats can even become brittle and break off. In these conditions fingers can become brittle and break off. Are you getting the point here? Some of the most important tips for fishing Tahoe come before you wet a line. Don't consider a trip here as just a casual jaunt; you'll be disappointed, and quite possibly in danger.

Alright, let's talk trout. I've written so many times about fishing The Big Lake that I sometimes think there's nothing else to say. Then I learn something new; a technique, lure or area that produces big fish, and I get the fire in my belly again, to fish the lake hard whenever I can, and to tell fishing stories when I can't get out.

So let's revisit my favorite subject, trolling for trout in the shallows, or as we call it here top lining. The big myth on Tahoe is that all the best fish are two-hundred feet deep, requiring heavy tackle and downriggers or steel wire line to present a bait or lure. Sure, this will catch large mackinaw year round, but in all except the hottest days of summer lake trout can also be found in the top fifty feet, mixed in with large rainbow and brown trout. Action over the last few weeks has been outstanding; rainbow trout averaging twelve to eighteen inches, brown trout over five pounds, and mackinaw close to twenty have all been biting. So how do we catch these shallow fish the old school way?

Troll a long line! With ultra-clear water and wild, wary trout you need extreme distance separating your lure from the disturbance of your boat. Successful topline trollers here know how to handle three to six hundred feet of line, which takes quite a bit of practice. Start at the short end, and work your way up. Expect to lose twenty or thirty lures on the bottom, and hopefully on some big fish while climbing the learning curve. I still lose a lure every trip or two- Welcome to Lake Tahoe, thank you for your donation!

Troll a light line: although twenty-pound test would be helpful when battling trout that could top the twenty pound mark, these fish are quite line-shy in the shallows. Charter captain Mike Nielsen of Tahoe Topliners routinely uses six-pound-test to bring in the big ones, while my current preference is eight-pound Berkley Trilene or Maxima line for most fast trolling; I've just had my heart and line broken too many times with six-pound. Browns and Rainbows are especially line-shy, while shallow mackinaw will hit on ten to twelve-pound test in low-light or choppy conditions. I use twelve-pound fluorocarbon at these times when pulling the largest (eight to twelve-inch) plugs for macks, since the lures themselves pull so hard when trolled that lighter line can snap on the strike.

Use minnow plugs for trolling fast and live minnows for trolling slow; It's all about the minnows here. Traditional trout trolling involves a multitude of flies, spinners and spoons, and though you could catch an occasional trout here on any lure, locals know that to hook fish consistently, you need to use fish. In early November I conducted my Tahoe seminar for Bob Davis, guiding him and a friend on his boat, and we used Rapala Countdown plugs early, then minnows behind dodgers for the rest of the morning, catching two rainbows to twenty inches and eleven mackinaw to six pounds. It was quite a trip and we were happy, but Bob wanted more. He booked me again in December, stating "I want to go for the big ones" (as opposed to six pounders). It was a tall order, as the largest trout are always a long shot, but I explained this and he still wanted to go. The day before our trip I scouted the lake in my little cartop boat, trolling eight hours for one fish, a seventeen pound mackinaw. I started at dawn, pulling big plugs in rain and snow for two hours without a touch. When the sun rose and broke through the clouds, I went to plan B, trolling live minnows over shallow, rocky areas. Trout often hit minnows hard when they refuse artificials, but on this day they just nipped at the live bait. I spent another hour watching my rods bend then straighten again and reeling in to find minnows with their tail-fins nipped off.

"Well if I'm not going to catch trout, I might as well not catch big trout!" I told myself as I resumed pulling lures, this time along steep, sandy drops. At one in the afternoon I hooked my only fish of the day, a pot-bellied thirty-five incher that struck an eight-inch rainbow trout pattern AC Skinny plug. So when I met Bob at Cave Rock the next morning I told him about my slow day and he was willing to chance an even slower one, so we headed out, crossing the lake at high speed and setting up a troll in the shallow south end of the lake.

Another tip for shallow fishing on Tahoe is to troll tight to bottom structure. Trout are not generally found suspended far from the bottom, and your lure or minnow must spend most of its time within a few feet of the lake bed to consistently catch fish. In past years I fished almost exclusively in rocky areas, but lately I've been having good results trolling over the sand as well. Not the flat sand mind you, which extends out for hundreds of yards on Tahoe's southern shore, sloping gently from mere inches of depth to twenty feet before dropping abruptly down sand cliffs to deep water. We call this drop-off the 'color line' because on sunny days you can look out on the lake and see the lip of these submerged cliffs, where the color of the water changes from emerald green in the shallows to a brilliant azure blue in the depths.

My client and I worked this color line in his boat for most of the day in a bitter wind and mixed sun and clouds, hooking only four fish. Our first trout was a nine-pound mackinaw caught on the rainbow trout AC Skinny, and our last was a seven-pound brown trout that hammered a black and gold Skinny. Moments like that make all the fishless hours and frozen fingers worthwhile.

They also bring me to my next tip for would-be shallow trollers, know the running depth of your lures. When we say 'topline' we don't really mean that the whole line is on top, just that we aren't using downriggers, lead core or wire line to achieve extra depth. Each lure has a given trolling depth, and many lures run deeper than inexperienced anglers would imagine. A Rapala F-18 for example, which floats on the water's surface when at rest, will troll at close to twenty feet deep when trolled at three miles-per-hour on a ridiculously long Tahoe line. I know this not from a chart or book on lure trolling depth, but from the countless times I've backed up to free a plug wedged in the rocks, checking my depth finder when I'm directly over it. A lure that needs twenty feet of trolling depth will certainly slam bottom, eventually hanging up and breaking off if trolled in five feet of water, while a lure that runs only five feet deep will troll all day in twenty foot depths without a problem, except for the lack of fish. On the day described, my client and I caught the brown trout on a shallow-running plug on the inside edge of the color line and the mackinaw on a larger, deeper running lure on the outside rod.

As a Pro-Staffer for AC Plugs, I'm of course partial to these hand-made lures that have been slamming the fish for me on Tahoe lately, but there are a number of other plugs on the market that will produce here. I've also had excellent results with Rapala, Rebel and Bomber brand plugs. The thing to remember when trolling any plug is to pick your moments!

Dawn, dusk, and overcast or windy conditions are best for fooling wild trout with wood or plastic, while live minnows will take fish all day, even in flat-calm water with full sun. So why troll lures at all? In a word, monsters! Most of my larger fish lately have been hooked in choppy water, with one fifteen-pound mackinaw caught on Christmas Eve in a driving rainstorm that caused my old Gore-Tex suit to fail. Let the weather be your guide- too rough? Go home. Too calm? Try slow-trolling live bait.

Final Tip: I just can't stop myself from giving away all the Tahoe secrets, can I? Here's one more- trout are a lot more like catfish than all the snobby fly-fishing guys would like to admit. They are very scent-oriented and will bite smelly lures aggressively when plain offerings can't draw a strike. Why do you think Power Bait and salmon eggs catch so many trout? It's all about the stink, baby! I cover all my plugs with Pro-Cure bait scents before putting them in the water; lately I've had best success smearing on a thick coating of Trophy Trout Bait Butter, then adding a squirt of Shrimp and Prawn Oil.

Until Next Time!
Mark (Never Stand In A Canoe) Wiza
Pro-Staff for AC Plugs and Pro-Cure Bait Scents

Email Me!

Mark is a licensed fishing guide offering a variety of trips in the Tahoe area, including a special on-the-water seminar for the angler who wants to learn how to fish The Big Lake from his or her own boat. Call Tahoe Fly Fishing Outfitters at (530) 541-8208 or Email Mark for details.