Several local lakes provide great brown trout fishing

The trout action is really good at many of our area lakes, Folsom Lake, Rollins, Collins, Stumpy Meadows, French Meadows, Fuller, Ice House Reservoir, and Union Valley Reservoir are all giving up some nice fish. Most of these lakes require early morning fishing. Folsom Lake for sure. You should get to Folsom just before day break. Or, I should say, after the gates are opened, say at Horseshoe Bar. This area has some of the best shore line to fish from if you don't have a boat. When you fish this shore line, don't spend too much time at any one spot. Move around and fish different places. Say from either side of a cove or from a rocky point. Don't lug a tackle box. Use a shoulder bag with your lures or bait tucked away in it. This way you won't have to worry about your tackle box back on the shore line somewhere. You can put an ice bag, soda, and a sandwich in there and move about freely. Fishing this way will allow you to cover a lot of water and locate more cruising trout. This method can be used on all the lakes mentioned before. The bait you should use is worms, and red worms and big night crawlers are really good too. Also make sure you have some meal worms. You can get a good supply at a local pet store. For lures, you should start out with your favorite. If it doesn't work in say half an hour of use then you should change to another type. Like from a super duper to a kastmaster. If these don't work then change to something like a blue fox spinner or even a small silver flatfish. Sooner or later you'll have the right lure on and get into fish. Most likely they will be rainbow trout. But you might pick up that single big brown trout finning about. A fellow once said to me, "There ain't no brown trout in Folsom Lake." Wrong! They're in there and they are big. As I mentioned before get to Folsom Lake early. The boat traffic (water skiers) really kick up the lake's surface and puts the fish off the bite. If you fish from a float tube and the lake's surface starts to kick up, find a nice cove with willow trees across its mouth. This way you won't get beat up by the heavy water the boats kick up. The only thing you'll probably get in fishing the cove is small mouth bass and large mouth bass. But that's not a bad way to go - there's some monsters in this lake. To get into the trout, fish the rocky points and shore lines. Of the lakes mentioned earlier, I'd take a crack at Union Valley Reservoir. It's up at 4,900 feet above sea level. With all the snow that we have had, the lake is most likely full, and that's 277,300 acre feet. My favorite lure for this lake is the kastmaster in silver or gold. Use the one- eighth or one-quarter ounce size. A silver one with a red stripe down one side works very well also.