May 2013 RVTA Trout Fishing Tournament Report. This past Saturday, both Rob and I fished the May 11th RVTA trout tournament together in his boat. The day started out cloudy, but warm, and the forecast called for severe thunderstorms. We got a bit of a late start and got onto the water around 6:00 AM, only a half an hour after the start of the tournament, which was at 5:30 AM. We started out trolling lures around the boat launch area for some Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout. Both our lures were about 200 feet behind the boat. Rob was using a YoZuri Pins Minnow in Rainbow Trout colors and I was using an F9 Rapala in Rainbow Trout pattern. On our second or third pass around the cove my 4’6″ noodle rod doubles over. We’re now in about 30 feet of water and the surface temp is reading 60.2 degrees Fahrenheit. I take my pole out of the rod holder, set the hook, and begin to fight the fish.

My 20.75-inch, 3.74-lb Rainbow Trout

At first I’m feeling the weight of the fish on the end of my line but then my line goes slack and I think I’ve lost it for a second, until I realize it was swimming towards the boat, so I keep reeling and once the fish gets to the boat it just keeps going past us and goes on a nice run. After it finishes it’s run I get it in close enough to the boat for us to see that it’s a nice big Rainbow! Shortly after it sees the boat, it starts to freak out again and swims under the boat, but luckily I was able to get it under control and Rob nets it for me. We weren’t sure how much it weighed exactly, we estimated around 4 pounds, but we did know it definitely put me in the running for the tournament. Also turned out to be one of the Trout that was tagged JoinRVTA and recently released into the reservoir!

JoinRVTA Jaw tagged Rainbow Trout!

Since we got one nice fish with that method early on, we decided to keep trying to see if we could pick up any other Bows or Browns. After another pass or two around the area, despite the fact there were tons of trout to be seen feeding on the surface, nothing else took. So we decided to head out into deeper water and try wire lining with our two leadcore rods. We tried this method for a few hours with anywhere between five and ten colors of leadcore out in 60-100 feet of water at both the North and South towers, and everywhere in between, but nothing took.

So with only a few more hours left in the tournament we decided to drift live Herring on the bottom for some Lake Trout since wire lining didn’t get us anything. We started out about half way between the North and South towers, with the wind pushing us towards the North. We ended up drifting all the way to the North tower with only two or three missed hits and some fish playing with some of our lines, but yet again nothing took. By this time there was only a little under an hour left in the tournament, so we decided to try trolling lures again back to the boat launch so we could get there in time for weigh in. Got one hit on the Rapala again on the way in, but didn’t stick the hook. After that, we didn’t have time to do much else before weigh in, so we finally headed in with our one Rainbow from the morning.

The official weigh in for my Rainbow was 3.74 lbs and 20.75 inches, my biggest Rainbow, as well as my first tagged Trout out of Round Valley! The guys at the RVTA booth doing the weigh in told Rob and I that I was in first place as of then, though we knew most of the boats hadn’t weighed in yet, and that there was a 26″ Rainbow caught as well. After all the fish were weighed in, I was pushed back to 3rd place, which is where I ended up staying, and I’m perfectly fine with that! First place fish was a monster 7.66 lb Rainbow, and 2nd place was a 5.56 lb Rainbow. Full results can be found on the RVTA website here.

1st, 2nd, and 3rd place Trout

Also saw a 17 inch or so Brown Trout that was weighed in that had clear bite marks on both sides from a big Laker or some other predatory fish. It looked it got hit from the side by a musky or something, can’t say I’ve seen that before! Overall it was a great tournament, and luckily the rain held off until we were finishing up getting the boat in. So we still got drenched, but at least the tournament was done by then! Overall, great day, now we need to figure out how to fish with lead core!