Stager doesn't just stick his finger in the jar for a blob of bait. He has created his own technique for preparing PowerBait for presentation to the fish. "And it doesn't matter where we go."

Stager fishes PowerBait on a slip-rig using a 1/2-ounce steel bullet sinker, a snap and a No. 8 Octopus hook. He starts with a 15-inch leader and adjusts its length as needed so his bait is always floating above the grass or weedbeds on the lake bottom.

He rolls a small marble of PowerBait vigorously between his hands to warm it, then places the bait on his hook and fashions it so it resembles a "baby ice cream cone," with the narrowing portion covering the eye of the hook and reaching about a half-inch up the fishing line.

In the water, the large portion floats upward and this, Stager believes, resembles a leech hovering in water.

"This stuff has to be out of weeds to work. If you cast this out and drag it back 1 or 2 feet through the weeds, and get weeds on the PowerBait, you won't catch a fish with it."

Once you cast it, you've got to leave it there.

If it's open water with mostly rocks and sand, then you can move it -- but not very much. Stager said the fish will hit the bait in a fashion he termed "verocity" -- a term he coined denoting a mixture of velocity and ferociousness.

The key is making the bait sit as still as possible. If you fish from a boat, Stager emphasized the need to anchor from both bow and stern for this to work.

"If you just have one anchor out, and you're just kind of floating in the wind and the breeze it won't work," he said.

"That boat will drag that bait through the grass and the weeds. You won't do any good."

For flyfishermen, Doucette recommends blood-colored leech patterns or Zebra Midges in size 10 or 12. Use a medium sink-tip line to get the leeches down to the fish.

Mornings are best for float tubes, but afternoon winds are common.

Doucette said that anglers may want to try fishing the old river channel about 100 to 150 yards off the area known as "Jet Skis Beach."

Trout sit in the current and wait for tasty morsels to float by. The channel has some old willows and brush, so be prepared to lose some tackle.

Boaters usually do well by trolling Rapalas and other spinners along the dam. Some anglers even use downriggers to get their baits to a specific depth.

Stager likes lures with a dark back, a green side and a yellow belly or a Husky Jerk. Blue Fox spinners can also be productive.

"The day the ice comes off is the day you want to be here," he said.

"When the ice melts, be in a boat on that lake and just be trolling. It'll open your eyes."

RUBY MARSHES
To the east of South Fork and over The Rubies is the third member of the trout-fishing Triple Crown.

Fed by more than 200 individual springs, the Ruby Marshes spread across the southern end of Ruby Valley and comprise a significant portion of the Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The area sits at an elevation of 6,000 feet, some 80 miles southeast of Elko.