Collins Lake

Using our internet connection, Collins Lake is now offering a free cell phone hot spot for our campers who use Verizon.  The tech terminology is a “Femtocell”… but for all of the rest of you, simply come up to the park office and the patio deck area behind the store will give you 4 bars!

The spring of 2009 has proven to be one of the best fishing seasons for both bass and trout.  We have seen some very large bass (the largest was 15 pounds) and so many 4 to 8 lb trophy rainbow trout this year that it is almost becomming a common everyday occurance.  Yet, in the midst of the flurry of big fish, three exceptional trout catches have stood out heads and shoulders above the crowd.  Each one has successively toppled the previous lake record.  The first was a 13lb-4oz rainbow on April 13, 2009 by Gerrie Morrison… the second was a 14lb rainbow on April 18, 2009 by Logan Bailey… and today we saw a 14lb-3oz rainbow trout by Rich Moore of Mountain View, CA using a rapala lure.  Great Job Rich!

Collins Lake has upgraded our WI-FI system for 2009.  You will now have two choices for internet access while you are camping.  We still offer a free WI-FI access at our store and to sites near the store.  This free access has been upgraded for 2009 to a faster connection. 

If you are camping further away from the store, many sites are also picking up a WI-FI signal from a company called Digital Path.  This company sells you connections directly to their systems using your credit card online, but their rates are very reasonable.  Although many sites will get this signal, some won’t depending on the density of the trees nearby since it is a wireless signal.  With Digital Path’s system, the coverage for wireless internet access now covers more campsites directly than before.

Recent rains have returned Collins Lake’s water level to within 10′ of the spillway and the lake level looks very good for the summer of 2009.  Although we are not 100% full, we do expect normal operations for boat launching and lake use for 2009.

Collins Lake is expanding the successful net pen project for 2008. We are raising trophy rainbow trout in underwater net pens during the winter and releasing them in late spring. There will be a total of 12 pens this winter, each about the size of a bedroom (12′x 10′x 12′) which will be located at the marina. These same trout are expected to triple in size to become 3 to 4 pound trophy-sized fish when released next Spring!

Loading Buckets

Collins Lake already has California’s largest trout stocking program north of Sacramento and these net pens will further increase this successful program. For every plant of rainbow trout normally received from Fish and Game, Collins Lake purchases 3 plants of larger trophy sized trout from private hatcheries. In 2007, there were a total of 28,000 pounds of trout planted. The average size of trophy trout planted each week during the spring was 2 to 6 pounds, with some whoppers topping 10 pounds!

These new net pens will make Collins Lake’s intensive trout planting program even bigger. Depending on the actual growth rates, these pens could add about 15,000 pounds to the existing program.

Dumping Fish

This net pen project is a cooperative effort of several groups working together. Department of Fish and Game provide the fish from their hatchery. Two non-profit groups of volunteers, Kokanee Power and California Inland Fisheries Foundation have been raising money to provide the food. Collins Lake provided the labor and materials to build four new pens and the marina space to keep all 12 of the pens. Collins Lake staff will care for the trout, feeding them daily and keeping the pens clean of algae. Local home school families from H.I.S. Ministries assisted in a bucket brigade to plant the fish from the truck into the pens.

Each group did their part to make this project a success. This project would have been too big for any one group to do by themselves. All groups involved are hoping to build more pens in the future at Collins Lake after this pilot year is completed. Collins Lake is also looking into raising catfish in these same pens during the summer months when it is too warm to keep trout. For more information or to further support projects like this, visit www.kokaneepower.org, or www.kokanee.org.