Camanche Pond Report

[JAWallace]

Figured Super Bowl Sunday would be a light day at Camanche, and I was right in more ways than one. One pontoon on the water besides mine the entire 5 hours I fished it. He was bait fishing and reported no bites for eight hours.

Short answer is one take, culminated in a LDR and that was it for me. Tried every line, technique, and fly imaginable and nothing worked, even after a reported 600 lbs. planted in the pond earlier this week. . The shore Power Bait Club did a little better, but not much. One guy had 8 fish, two rods, 11 hours fishing. Nice, quality fish though, all over 16".

The pond is very deep--about 40' according to my sonar, and the trout are all on the edges. I did spook one into the weeds while using an indicator. the shallows are only about 15' - 20' out from the bank and then it goes deep without any weed growth or bottom structure. I did graph a few and cast to the one working fish on and off for two hours. No evidence of insect activity, not even husks.

The pelicans weren't doing any better than I so I didn't feel too bad. Sun the entire time which probably wasn't helpful for shallow fish.

[Terry Imai]

Often when fishing in stillwater, you have to find the correct depth that the fish are hanging in. When I go out on any lake, I take a whole selection of various lines to get into the correct depth. The three lines that I wouldn't leave the house with are:

a floater;

an intermediate (especially the Courtland camo line); and

and a type 2 sinker that has density compensated which means the line sinks equally throughout the entire line.

The top stillwater expert is Phil Rowley and he suggested that the Rio "Hover" is also nice and I did buy the "coolaid" but haven't used it yet.

The other thing is to to have different types of woolly buggers and leach patterns. I would suggest if you tie your own bugs (especially since buggers and leach are easy ties) that you have a combination of weighted and unweighted because they do vary in the retrieve and it's difficult to determine what the fish like for that particular day.

Good luck on the next time you go out fishing...

[JAWallace]

I agree with those line choices. In the winter the slime line usually gets the most use from me--Type II otherwise. The few fish I charted were between 5 and 8 feet deep so the Type I is fine. I also tried a floater with #18-#20 chron/prince in the film, wind drifting or very slow hand twist without an indicator. I thought that might do it. Nah! Direct sun didn't help either. Maybe a better fisherman could have done better, or maybe I've got a skunk graft;-)

None of these waters are rocket science. I've done well at Camanche Pond previously by dragging around a burnt orange bugger and a #18 Prince which pretty much works for lazy fishing in most still waters in the West. Having fish there helps, and I don't think there were many.

[Terry Imai]

When the water is this cool, the fish are not as aggressive when compared to spring and fall fishing. The one thing I always do for all of my stillwater and even stream/river fishing is to use an open loop knot rather than a cinch knot. People may think you're getting a little an*l with something as small as that but I've found that using an open loop knot allows that little bit more lifelike action to your bug which may trigger a hit.

Just something you may want to try...