Latitude: 39.34917,Longitude: -120.65389-- Off to Fuller Lake
At long last, I’m making a pilgrimage to Fuller Lake, my idea of trout fishing heaven. My fishing scout buddies, who are drop dead serious when it comes to reports about Fuller Lake (although I know they lie their asses of when telling me about the salmon and steelhead they catch elsewhere), assure me that “Fall fishing is incredible up at Fuller” so off I go on Friday morning to Grass Valley, these to turn right on Highway 20 and head East towards Fuller.
The turn off to this sparking California trout jackpot lake always makes me smile, and it’s helped me win bets with gullible friends. The first time I was given directions they consisted of go out Highway 20 until you see a river running uphill on the south side of the road. I swallowed the bait then, looked on the south side of the road and sure enough there it was, fast flowing water ripping uphill.
It’s an optical illusion caused by your seeing a slight sloping watercourse from a vantage point that’s more steeply sloped than the channel. It never ceases to make me stop, look, smile and try to win money from anyone who’s never seen it before.
The one thing I can say truthfully about Fuller Lake is that I wish I had discovered it earlier in my life. It doesn’t matter what time of the year I go, or whether I’m fly fishing from a tube, casting floating bait at the end of leader run through a sliding sinker rig or using a worm suspended underneath a bobber. Fuller Lake is fish lip ripping fun any time of the year..
My favorite times of the year to fish Fuller are: Right after the ice breaks in the spring and late fall before the first snow. Fuller in the fall is my personal favorite. Hold over rainbows are anxious to hit anything that will help them fatten up for the winter and the resident herd of German browns become barracuda-like in the ferocity with which they take a hook, fly or lure.
I’ve had 18-inch brownies snap leaders and tippets at Fuller several times when I fish this lake in the fall. And, when fishing cheese and egg rigs at Fuller, I’ve had double hookups on at least five trips. (Oh the shame of publicly admitting I use bait some times).
There is one spot at one Fuller that is incredibly productive. Getting to it isn’t easy. Using a canoe or a float tube, look for the confluence of a small stream on the lake’s northeast corner. Paddle over , and settle in about 25 feet off shore. Don’t get too comfortable. That specific section of Fuller is where some really big German browns hang out. And the one thing I know for certain about Fuller’s small population of brownies is that you can’t horse them in. They get pissed off.
So that’s where I’ll be late this week, up in the Sierra passing on my enjoyment of fishing at Fuller Lake to my 10-year-old buddy and godson, Alistair James Young (“AJ” for short). —Jim Forbes, anxiously awaiting the start of my trip to Fuller Lake later this week.
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