On Thursday morning, July 12, I went fishing at Lake Tahoe for Mackinaw (Lake) Trout with two friends, Rob Boehmer and Thomas Strong, both of whom live in Carson City.
Boehmer had booked a trip with my longtime good friend and sport fishing guide, Gene St. Denis (“Gino”) of Blue Ribbon Charters (530-544-6552) at South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
Boehmer called me several days prior to July 12 and asked if I would like to accompany him and Strong on their fishing trip with Gino.
Geez, I would have had to be crazy to say no!
I said, “You bet, and I’ll bring breakfast pastries and lunches.”
We were set to have fun on Thursday!
Gino has fished Tahoe for some thirty years (the last 14 years as a fishing guide) and is one of the top, if not the top, guides at that lake.
In my less-than-humble opinion, he is THE PREMIER GUIDE at Tahoe.
He told us to meet him at the boat ramp at Cave Rock Landing at 6:00 a.m. to get an early start for our Mackinaw (Lake) Trout fishing.
At 5:00 a.m., I drove the short distance to “Donuts To Go,” and picked up a box full of all kinds of breakfast pastries for the four of us.
At 5:30 a.m., the other two picked me up at my home, and at 6:00 a.m., we arrived at Cave Rock Landing on the Nevada side of Tahoe.
We parked the vehicle, walked to the boat launch and waited for Gino to arrive with his sport fishing boat “The PT-109.”
In just a few minutes he arrived, backed his boat down the ramp, we hopped on board with pastries, a cooler full of lunches and soft drinks, cameras, and were ready to enjoy a day of Mackinaw fishing at “The Lake in the Sky.”
As we left the dock, I asked Gino where we were going to fish that day.
He said, “We are going to fish over at the Tahoe City Shelf (on the northwest side of the lake), the last couple of times that I’ve been there, we have caught some pretty decent-sized fish.”
It was a gorgeous day with no clouds, no wind and no waves.
For those of you who have never been to Lake Tahoe, it is about 28 miles long, 14 miles wide, 1,600 feet deep at the deepest spot and has an eye-popping average depth of 904 feet.
The lake contains a variety of fish including Mackinaw (Lake) Trout, Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Brook Trout, Kokanee Salmon, etc.
It was about a 45 minute ride across the lake to the Tahoe City Shelf, and on the way over to there, the four of us enjoyed the breakfast pastries (my two favorites are the chocolate covered bar and the apple filled bar), lots of small talk and the spectacular Tahoe scenery.
Once we arrived at our fishing location, Gino quickly rigged up a pole on each of the downriggers on the two sides of the boat.
Each pole had large silver colored flasher blades and a live minnow for bait, the lines were attached to the downriggers and they were dropped down to about 120 feet and we began to slowly troll.
While trolling, Gino was constantly adjusting our speed and depths, while happily munching on some of the breakfast pastries.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous: No wind, no clouds, bright sunshine, and the lake’s surface was like a mirror – a great day for trout fishing.
Shortly after we began trolling, Strong’s minnow had a strike and after a short tussle, he brought in the first Mackinaw of the day.
Then, Boehmer had a strike and he also brought in his first Mack of the day.
Gino had located a “Honey Hole” of Mackinaw Trout, they were not huge in size but there were a whole bunch in that one area.
By late morning, the three of us were limited out with Mackinaw that ran up to about five pounds in size, and we were ready for the ride back to the boat ramp at Cave Rock Landing.
It was a great day of fishing in great weather with a great fishing guide.
It doesn’t get much better than that!

Bet Your Favorite Pigeon
Bet your favorite pigeon that he can’t tell you about the biggest Mackinaw trout that I have ever caught at Lake Tahoe.
If he grins and says, ‘It was many years ago, and Don caught a 15-pound Mackinaw on flasher blades and a minnow, being trolled at a depth of 550 feet in front of King’s Beach,” he might have been on that same boat.
However, that pales by comparison with the Mackinaw that my wife Elaine caught several years ago while we were fishing with Gino.
Her Mackinaw checked in at 20-pounds, 9-ounces!

— Don Quilici is the Outdoor editor for Carson Now and www.SouthTahoeNow.com. He can be reached at donquilici@hotmail.com