It's midwinter, and the world-famous resorts ringing the Tahoe basin are packed with skiers and snowboarders from around the globe. There are lines for the craps tables. The slope-side bars are standing-room-only, and the hotels all have their "No Vacancy" signs lit.

The lake itself is empty, though, except for a few gritty dedicated anglers who are toughing out the cold and enjoying some of the most exciting fishing Tahoe has to offer.

Sure, summer fishing for mackinaw in 100 to 250 feet of water is fun, but it's not exactly pulse-pounding. You'll occasionally hook a double-digit fish that will give you a battle. But the typical 3- to 5-pounders aren't exactly drag-burners when hooked on a long line in deep water.

But winter fishing at Tahoe is a whole different story.

The cold surface water brings the mackinaw up from the depths to eat minnows and crawfish in the shallows. Big wild browns and rainbows feed aggressively right alongside them.

Hands down, the most productive tactic is trolling diving plugs or rigged night crawlers or minnows on long, light lines in just 10 to 80 feet of water.

Locally known as "toplining," this style of surface trolling yields violent strikes and white-knuckle touch-and-go battles with huge trout.

But it's not only the fishing itself that makes Tahoe exciting in the winter. Even calm, sunny winter mornings on the water are cold, but the best fishing days are blustery and overcast, often with a two-foot wind-chop and flurries of snow. At 6,225 feet, this is truly hardcore fishing, but the payoffs can be tremendous.

PLUGS FOR TROLLING
There are two basic approaches to toplining Tahoe:

1) Trolling very slowly with rigged night crawlers, live minnows or lures behind dodgers or flashers, or

2) Trolling somewhat faster with diving plugs, swimbaits or spoons.

Toplining master Mike Nielsen of the guide service Tahoe Topliners -- who has put 11 Tahoe browns over 10 pounds on his boat, including the current lake record of 15 pounds, 2 ounces -- prefers the latter method.

He drags a wide variety of plugs, including Bomber Long As, Rebel Minnows in the F40 size, Rebel Jointed Fastracs, AC Skinnies, Rapala Original and Jointed minnows in 11-, 13- and 18-centimeter sizes, Rapala Shad Raps and Cotton Cordell Grappler Shads.

Nielsen runs a range of colors, favoring "natural" patterns like rainbow and brown-trout imitations, black-silver (to imitate Tahoe's abundant kokanee), black-gold and blue-silver. Frequently he adds a predominantly orange or chartreuse plug to his spread, too.

The old adage of "Big bait, big fish" certainly holds true at Tahoe. Lure size plays a major role in how many fish you catch and how big they'll be.

Trolling smaller plugs -- Rapala F11s and F13s, smaller Shad Raps and Grappler Shads -- produces more hookups, but smaller fish, at least by Tahoe standards.

Occasionally, a big fish will grab a small lure, but if you're serious about pursuing wallhangers, Nielsen said to go with larger lures in the 6- to 8-inch range, such as Long As, AC Skinnies or even the large trout-patterned swimbaits popular for largemouth bass in Southern California.

Bites come more slowly, but your chances of hooking a real monster are far better.