The next world record goldfish just may come from the most unlikely of places…Lake Tahoe.
But if you want to get in on the action, you had better hurry because state wildlife officials are in the process of trying to rid the lake of several non-native invasive species.
Goldfish, largemouth bass, bluegill and crappie have all been illegally dumped into Tahoe over the years. While you wouldn’t expect these warm water species to thrive in the cold, clear waters of Tahoe, they have found a shallow, weedy sanctuary in the environmental abomination that is the South Shore’s Tahoe Keys.
When they built the Tahoe Keys, they basically filled in a very productive estuary and marsh and turned it into a housing development and marina. The resulting shallow warm water now doesn’t get flushed out by the upper Truckee River and have become a haven for warmwater invasive species.
When I used to run a six-pack charterboat out of the Keys back in the day, I would catch bass & crappie off the docks in the afternoons after my charters. There were some big bass in there, too — I saw largemouth to 10 plus pounds and crappie in the 2-pound class.
To read more about this issue, check out the Sac Bee
Take a trip to the Bottom of Lake Tahoe…just like the guy in the Godfather did!
Lake Tahoe is one of those places that has almost intrigued me. There’s just something about that clear water that inspires one to ponder what might lurk down there. At its deepest point, the lake bed is 1,600 feet beneath the surface. While I couldn’t get down that far, I did get my camera down to 100 feet last summer and had a look around.
Here’s what the guy wearing the concrete shoes in the Godfather may have seen…
Ramp Inspections: Coming to a lake near you?
Without proper planning, you could be locked out of your favorite lake...watching the sunrise from the parking lot!
Invasive species like Quagga and Zebra mussels and New Zealand Mud Snails are spreading at a rapid clip to lakes and streams throughout the West, and because of the threat these non-native critters pose to our water ways, you may soon find launching at your favorite lake more of a logistical hassle than ever before.
Local authorities are taking the threat very seriously, as these invaders are a really bad deal. In short, they are filter feeders which can completely alter entire ecosystems by removing phytoplankton from waterways — the stuff from which all other life begins. Also, they clear up the water, allowing sunlight to penetrate deeper, causing a proliferation of aquatic plants that can change species dominance.
To battle these guys, some lakes have completely banned all outside watercraft, while many others are requiring increasingly thorough inspections before you launch. Take one of my favorite fishing spots for example, Lake Tahoe. There, you have to pay for a complete inspection prior to launch (it was $30 for my little 14-foot skiff). Click here to read more…
Mikey Does it Again: A new Lake Tahoe record Brown Trout!
Marvin Child with his record brown!
Mike Nielsen of Tahoe Topliners is a very dangerous man…if you’re a brown trout, that is. This morning, he guided client Marvin Child to a new Lake Tahoe record brown trout. The fish weighed 15 pounds, 15 ounces and beats the previous mark of 15 pounds, 2 ounces, which was a fish that Nielsen guided a client to in 2008, which beat the previous record fish that…yep, you guessed it he guided yet another client to. Like I said, he’s a bad, bad man!
The latest record catch (which measured 36 inches), sucked down an F11 silver and black Rapala doused in Pautzke’s Liquid Krill.
Nor Cal: Water & Snow everywhere!
The Howe Ave. parking lot on the American River underwater
Tthe calendar says “spring” but Northern California has been getting hammered by a series of huge winter storms all week which have delivered serious amounts of rain to the lower elevations and many feet of snow to the high country…the likes of which we haven’t seen since I was a kid.
Of course, all that weather isn’t without complications. Most NorCal rivers are raging and the reservoirs are full. The Sacramento River is currently running around 100,000 CFS and getting very close to flood stage. With all the snow in the high country, let’s keep our fingers crossed that there are no Pineapple Express-style warm storms heading this way! On a positive note, we should have plenty of water this year!Click here to read more…