Davis Lake on the Fourth

[Chris Evison]

Fished Davis on the 4th. On lake around 7:15am and off at 1:30pm. Would have stayed longer, but I didn't want to fight traffic getting home (top of Kingsbury SLT) in the afternoon. We put in at Honker and motored over to the Camp 5 area. Water temp was 65-66 all day. Cool and breezy, didn't go to shorts till 1pm.

We started in shallow water (6ft) and steadily moved to deeper water. Best action was in 10-12ft. 3 or 4 tubers/pontoons around and a few boats in and out. Could see alot of people on water up by Jenkins. We were only ones I saw indicator fishing, all others that we could see were stripping. People stripping were catching fish, but not at the rate we were.

At 6ft got 1 fish, so moved out to 8ft and got 2. The move to 10ft got 2 more fish, so out to 12ft. Good choice!!! Vic finally hooks his 1st fish and is off to the races. Over next 3 hours we land around 40 fish and lose or miss just as many. We fished a variety of midge patterns as top fly and PTs as bottom fly (Thx for that bit of advice Mr. Clark). Fished PT 9ft down and PT was respondsible for 80% of fish we landed. Biggest fish was courtesy of Vic and was 17". Most were in the 12-14" range. Go small on the flies sz 14-18. Talked to one guy at ramp when leaving and he said his buddy got a 10lbr the day before.

Now having given this glowing report, I have to comment on the fish at the risk of much bashing. They seem fat and happy, but are covered with sores (copepods or whatever is causing this). These are the ugliest trout I've ever seen in my lifetime. You know how they have the ugliest dog contest; well, if there was an ugliest trout contest the Davis Lake trout would win hands down!!!!

Hey I would still go fish Davis any time, but bless my Ketchum Release tool.

[jbird]

if there was an ugliest trout contest the Davis Lake trout would win hands down!!!!

Have you ever fished klamath? ;-)

Sounds like a fun day on the water!

[jayclarkflyfishing]

Nice report Chris!Glad the PT worked for you guys.I'm not offended by the comments on the ugly fish.They are UGLY,but they still pull hard.The 10#er the guy caught was most likely a leftover from the derby in June.Still a big fish though.

Hope all is well!

Jay

[michaeln]

DFG planted Davis during the week of 6/27/10. I wonder if you guys got into a school of those planters? I wonder if DFG pre-infests the planters with copepods, in effect re-stocking the ugly fish population?

[1flyfisher]

The fish that were planted in June were planted for a fishing derby. They were 5 pounds + and up to 10 lbs. About 500 of them.
That's good, we need them and more of them.


The 12-14" fish that are being caught are the 10-12" parasite covered fish CADFG planted last fall.
There are few of the first year or second year (post treatment) fish that should be 17-22" fish around and being caught. Either they have been yanked out, died off, or are hunkered down in the deeper water and not coming in due to lack of damsels or whatever reason. Hopefully they are still out there somewhere in the lake.




DFG planted Davis during the week of 6/27/10. I wonder if you guys got into a school of those planters? I wonder if DFG pre-infests the planters with copepods, in effect re-stocking the ugly fish population?