I flyfished Martis pretty hard on a regular daily basis as I lived in Truckee from 1990 to 1997. It was damn good in that period. Excellent Callibaetis dry fly fishing. Fish 16-22" Rainbows and some slightly larger and some nice size browns during that period. I got an 8 pound Brown. I would consistently average 8 - maybe 15 fish. They were not hard pulling Rainbows. There was also blood midges and a few damsels during that period. I would start at 9 am and fish until 4. The wind would come up around 1pm but I would go to the creek and anchor up and the fish would move west to the creek every afternoon like clock work and I would catch maybe a half dozen more. During that period the weeds were not a problem at all. There was lots of open water and slots and channels and the creek area was good to fish. Water at the creek was 4+ feet deep right up to the creek bank which would draw in fish as the cold water would reach out into the lake 50+ feet from where the creek came in. The cold water would sink to the bottom and pull in fish. There was a good channel that dropped down 6+ feet and the creek cold water would flow into the lake. I liked the lake during that time period. I had a blast fishing it when I didn't hit Davis or Eagle it was right there and a few minutes from my house.
What happened to it was the 1997 floods. Those floods silted up the lake badly and reduced water depth particularly at the creek entrance which went from 4-6+ feet to two-3 feet and choked with weeds from the silt. That flood also killed off lots of the fish population and the minnows and sunfish population exploded reducing the Callibaetis. The Callibaetis were never the same after the 1997 floods and silt. All that silt is the problem in my opinion. People always say it is the fertilizer from the golf courses at North Star but I think the silt is the real problem. They should drain the lake and dredge it out especially the creek area, deepen that back like it once was and dump some gravel and rocks on the bottom which may reduce the weed growth. Throw some decent Eagle lake Rainbows in there. CADFG is a disaster. They let so many lakes get ruined like Davis. The lake was never the same after the 1997 floods and I stopped fishing it, concentrating on Eagle and Davis. Martis is Just another lake that CADFG has squandered away.
Last edited by FREEDOM-FLYFISHER; 07-10-2021 at 09:03 AM.
Bill Kiene (Boca Grande)
567 Barber Street
Sebastian, Florida 32958
Fly Fishing Travel Consultant
Certified FFF Casting Instructor
Email: billkiene63@gmail.com
Cell: 530/753-5267
Web: www.billkiene.com
Contact me for any reason........
______________________________________
I fish Davis, OR. there are still BIG rainbows in there but they are few and far between and extremely hard to catch. There is natural seepage of water from the lake through the porous lava. There are lava tubes and just porous masses of lava and the water leaks out. All over that part of OREGON you can see big masses of lava flows and right there at Davis. The water just seeps out of Davis through the lava into Wickiup.
Bookmarks