South Lake is proving to be a steady, excellent fishing hole

South Lake - Bishop, CA (Inyo County)


by Parchers Resort Gang
7-30-2012
(760) 873-4177
Website

Summer keeps rolling on and the trout fishing at the lake continues to be steady for most, excellent for some...very few bad reports coming in. Aside from stocking day, boaters fared best at the lake this week as big schools of fish were holding in the usual places, namely the Rock Slide, Phantom's Throne at the west corner of the dam and mid-dam, all areas inaccessible from shore. For an undisclosed reason, SCE locked the gate at the dam cutting off access to the west shore. The back inlets were holding fish too but it's a bit on the shallow side back there so they get fished out pretty quick when the catch n' keep folks are on the water. First one to the inlets usually does best. Best numbers were definitely on the main body of the lake. Big fish of the week was a 23" - 4 lb 6 oz Alpers, a personal best for by Bob Allen. In addition to his fish, several fish in the 3 to 4 lb range also came to the scales this week.

The bait n' wait folks were doing quite well this week on both dough baits and crawlers. Salmon Peach Powerbait and anything garlic were the best dough bait colors. Crawlers fished by the dam under a crawler were very productive for stocker Rainbows as well as a solid 3.5 lber caught by Manda James, pictured above of Riverside, CA.

The bite on soft plastics continues to roll with mini-jigs and trout worms both producing well. Top plastics this week were the cricket Trout Traps and either the Pink/Blue Sparkle Sierra Slammer jigs or pink crush trout worms. We had a surprise visit from Marlon Meade and the Berkeley Pro-Staff this week who not surprisingly killed it on jigs with the biggest fish caught by the group going around 4lbs in just a few short hours on the lake. Tipping mini-jigs with a mealworm 6' under a bobber has been a great tactic when the breeze comes up in the afternoon.

It sounds repetitive but the gold or red/gold Thomas Buoyant just keep catching fish for those who prefer to throw the hardware.

No trolling reports this week but drifting orange trout worms slowly produced well for a few folks.

The water level is slowly dropping but we're talking inches not feet at present, which is a good thing. Boaters willing to risk the launch from the rocky beach are still giving it a go but its pretty sketchy for boats larger than 14' and you better have some good trailer skills to make it happen.


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More Reports

Parchers Resort Reports
for Monday, July 23rd, 2012
South Lake: Fishing was slower at South Lake
Bishop Creek: Very good action on the So. Fork of Bishop Creek this week
North Lake: No Report from North Lake