Tahoe Fishing & Downrigger Cameras

I was up in the Sierras over the Memorial Day weekend, skiing at Heavenly in South Tahoe (yes, skiing in May - first time I'd seen shorts and bikinis on the slopes!) Having neglected to bring my fishing tackle, and finding myself surrounded by so much beautiful water, I consoled myself by doing a little research on the local fishing scene.

As you'd expect with a lake as big as Tahoe, there's a significant charter fishing business there, with boats going out after mackinaw (lake trout), rainbows, brown trout, and landlocked kokanee salmon. Some of them get downright huge - the record Tahoe mackinaw tipped the scale at over 37 pounds! Here are a few fish photos from one of the local charters.

One of the niftier discoveries I made while reading up on the Tahoe charter fleet was that you can now hook up underwater cameras to your downriggers, allowing you to watch the fish on live TV as they go after your lure (or, if it's a slow day, to just watch your lure for hours while nothing happens). To see it in action, check out these photos and videos taken with the Strike Vision camera system from Walker Downriggers.

As you'd also expect with a lake that size, Tahoe has its own legendary lake monster, known affectionately as "Tessie". While Tessie hasn't showed up on any fish cams yet, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before it does. Whether the camera would survive the experience is another story.