Some of the lakes near Redding, Ca. are fast becoming known as the finest land locked salmon lakes in California. With bumper crops of Kokanee salmon in Trinity and Whiskeytown Lakes this year, anglers are out spending quality time with friends and family fishing for these silver bullets of the deep. Trinity Lake has a ten (10) salmon daily limit and Whiskeytown and Shasta Lakes have a five (5) salmon daily limit. Either way, anglers who are filling their limits are going home with some very nice fillets.

I have been guiding clients on all of these lakes and we are seeing limits to near limits depending on the day. I've only had two days this year fishing for Kokanee where my clients didn't at least hook their limits. With the bigger Kokanee this year, its been a challenge to get all of the fish we hook to the net. Most days we will lose 1 of 3 fish we hook, but we just keep fishing through the lost ones until we have limits. Using bigger hooks, (size #1 or #2 hooks) and kicking the boat out of gear when we hook up is helping my hook/land ratio.

Trinity lake is fishing the best right now and steady action has been the rule every trip. Whiskeytown Lake has the biggest Kokanee, but we are having to use all of our knowledge of the Kokanee fishery and a lot of our tackle inventory to stay successful. Shasta Lake is just now really turning on and a mix of Kings and rainbows seems to be the norm right now. Shasta Lake is definitely seeing the best rainbow fishing out of the bunch.

I have this weekend available to fish any of the above lakes, but if anyone out there needs to fish another day, I do have a few days available during the remainder of the month. I would look for the fishing to improve on all of the aforementioned lakes as we move deeper into summer and expect to see some beautiful specimens caught this year! To book your trip, call me or visit my website to send me a contact message like so many others have done this season. Its been a great year already and its only going to get better!

Todays limits of Whiskeytown Lake Kokanee salmon!