Donner lake

[malbers]

Going to Donner on wed-Sunday and am staying at a house on the lake with a private dock. I am taking my boat so my options are wide open. Any suggestions are welcome from fly to conventional gear. I am a fly fishing river rat so lake fishing always causes me strife. Help if you have anything to try.

[DFrink]

Never fished Donner. But if you have some black or dark green buggers (or even better wiggle tails) and an Intermediate line (or floater with a really long leader) I bet you could find some fish. Fish the lake the same as you would if you were throwing spinners.

Dan

[neil]

A buddy is up there today killing the kokanee. Not much help, I know, since I'm sure he's using downriggers...but, he did say that the recreational traffic was nutz, so I'd plan on fishing early or late.

Other than that, I got nothin'...


Going to Donner on wed-Sunday and am staying at a house on the lake with a private dock. I am taking my boat so my options are wide open. Any suggestions are welcome from fly to conventional gear. I am a fly fishing river rat so lake fishing always causes me strife. Help if you have anything to try.

[Tony Buzolich]

If you've got a shooting head set-up for shad you can take kokanee fairly easy with a fly. The area on the south east part of the lake called ? the China Wall? was always a good spot for them.

The trick is to simply let it sink, and when you think you're deep enough, let it sink some more. A quick short strip or two to get their attention and then keep it coming with an occassional pause.

I used to use an orange marabou leech pattern with only a little sparkle for everything up there. Rainbows and kokanee both ate it well. Up at Stampede my wife hooked up to what must have been a large brown or a Mackinaw once while using this same fly. She had it on for almost 15 minutes in deep water before it wore thru and broke off. We never saw the fish.

If you tie, use a long shank #6 hook with a marabou tail, then start your body with orange or rootbeer crystal chennile. Make about two wraps then put in another small clump of marabou on the back only. Continue with alternateing the crystal chennile and then more marabou until you reach the head, and then tie off. This has been a killer fly on every lake up that way.

Lots of lakes up there have small leeches in a rust or olive color and these marabou streamers really look like them.

Also, if you're on Donner with a boat, get out there early before the water skiers get going, and stay close to shore. It gets deep really quick and some of the best fishing was within a few yards of shore. When we lived up at our cabin I'd often fish early and be off the water by 8:00-8:30 and home for breakfast before 9:00.

Hope this helps a little, TONY

[DFrink]

Sounds fun. Thanks for sharing Tony.


If you've got a shooting head set-up for shad you can take kokanee fairly easy with a fly. The area on the south east part of the lake called ? the China Wall? was always a good spot for them.

The trick is to simply let it sink, and when you think you're deep enough, let it sink some more. A quick short strip or two to get their attention and then keep it coming with an occassional pause.

I used to use an orange marabou leech pattern with only a little sparkle for everything up there. Rainbows and kokanee both ate it well. Up at Stampede my wife hooked up to what must have been a large brown or a Mackinaw once while using this same fly. She had it on for almost 15 minutes in deep water before it wore thru and broke off. We never saw the fish.

If you tie, use a long shank #6 hook with a marabou tail, then start your body with orange or rootbeer crystal chennile. Make about two wraps then put in another small clump of marabou on the back only. Continue with alternateing the crystal chennile and then more marabou until you reach the head, and then tie off. This has been a killer fly on every lake up that way.

Lots of lakes up there have small leeches in a rust or olive color and these marabou streamers really look like them.

Also, if you're on Donner with a boat, get out there early before the water skiers get going, and stay close to shore. It gets deep really quick and some of the best fishing was within a few yards of shore. When we lived up at our cabin I'd often fish early and be off the water by 8:00-8:30 and home for breakfast before 9:00.

Hope this helps a little, TONY

[bigfly]

They stock Donner from the boat ramp.
So the "easy guys" are hanging around there.
The inlet creek can draw a fish or two as well.
I like wind drifting from there with a westerly breeze in the evening.
Floating line in the PM, can produce, but I'll often use a 300 gr. on my 8wt.
Twitch and drift.....

Jim

[malbers]

Thanks for the tips, I was unable to hook up anything on sinking fly line, but the evening were good for rainbows from the dock on floating line and a dry fly. Also we used some night crawlers and sliding sinkers to get a few mackinaw in the deep water from our dock on south shore drive. I have a nice picture of my five year old with a Mack but it doesn't want to load. Thanks for all the help.