The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

Fished Baum lake for the first time ever Wednesday and Thursday. The report from Vaughn's was that flows were down and the best place to fish was at the inlet from Crystal lake. The weather was cool and overcast so the baetis were out. Caught a few on a #18 cripple. The rest were caught on midge and mayfly nymphs either as a dropper to the cripple, or under an indicator. I spent the last half of Thursday fishing a couple of small creeks in the area. One was loaded (hatchery fish) with brookies. The dry and dropper setup worked well on the creeks. I have to admit my wild trout snobbery has vanished in the past few years due to the fact that I don't fish for trout as much as I would like to. I also think the quality of hatchery fish has greatly improved over the years. The small creek brookies were on fire with fall colors. Other than a slight rounding of the bottom tip of the tail they looked like wild trout. The rainbows at Baum were in good shape too. Mike

what creeks did you fish? the upper section of hat creek has some big brood stock brookies planted in it. not uncommon to hear about 4lb brookies caught. usually its the bait guys that catch the big ones though.