Mission Beach Surf Fishing - July 13

Since low tide is at 7:00 am, decide to get there around 5:30 to catch the outgoing tide. Turned out to be a good decision.

First cast, hooked up a nice size yellowfin croaker and then it was on. Seems I stumbled on a fishing hole full of yellowfin croakers which is not uncommon. Caught a nice size corvina as well.

Had some of the boys show up later on including my mate's dad Big Al Aylward visiting from New Zealand. Nice to see him catch his very first barrred surfperch. Wish we could have put him in more fish but the bite seem to have died after 7:00 am as the tide slack.

We did manage to catch a few small perch after but for sure not the same as our other outings. Here are some photos:

Here is a corvina and a croaker

Here's Big Al with a very nice Barred Surfperch

Here's my buddy Emilio with a nice Yellowfin Croaker

Some nice fish for the dinner table...

Fishing could have been better, but had lots of fun with the guys. 

Weapons of choice: 2-inch Berkley Gulf Sandworms in natural & camo colors on light tackle. Wanted to try some sandcrabs but could not find any.

Surf Fishing, Saturday June 1st

Went to Mission Beach to get some fishing in early before all the tourists overcrowds the beach. Got there around 5:30 am, overcast morning, air is in the cool side, water is warm and incoming tide.

Fishing was great early on with non-stop hook up for the first hour, then the tide started coming in and so did all the kelp. Had to work my way around the weeds in the water, after the first hour I don't think that I made a single cast without reeling back in some salad.

After awhile kinda got tired of unhooking the weeds of my hooks, fish on or not. Also, got tired of getting beat up by the surf, soaking wet and cold. Called it the day at around 8:00 am. Got  a couple of hours of fishing in, caught around 15 barred surf perch and 1 croacker.

Even with that misery, still a great morning to start the day with. Bait of choice was 2-inch Berkley Gulf Sandworms on light tackle.

Lake Poway, April 24

Took off work for the day to do some spring fishing. Got to the lake when it opened at 6:00 am, got the boat and off I went.

Weather was over cast and a little in the cool side. Started off fishing the shallows with a spinnerbait and was able hooked in to a couple, but nothing big. When the sun finally came out, decided to do some sight fishing and able to catch a few smaller male. Did really see any females, but did see a lot fry's swimming around so I figured it was in between spawn. The wind picked up and made it hard to sight fish let alone hold the boat in place. I then decided to anchor up and fish the rock pile, turned out to be a good decision. Switched to drop shot with Roboworm in bold bluegill color and just slayed them with some decent size bass.

After a couple of hours fishing that same rock pile, decided to call it a day. Ended up with 22 bass, with the biggest one at about 4 pounds. Here are some photos. Last fish was the biggest one, very long but skinny, figure it's a post spawn.

Fishing Poway Lake...Prespawn

Took the day off from work and shot out to Poway Lake for a day of fishing. Got there around 6:00 am, a little cold and windy.

Looking to start fishing the rockpiles by the logboom, but there were a couple of boat already park there. So, I decided to hit up Hidden Bay for some structure fishing and to hopefully get out of the wind. Got there to find that I have the whole place to myself, meaning there were no other boats in there and there were no shore anglers.

Fished Hidden Bay for 3 hours and managed to catch 6 mostly on a dropshot. Caught a couple of early spawners sightfishing. There were a few fish on beds, but definitely still early for spawning. But in a couple of weeks during the next full moon, should be full blown spawn. Decide to leave Hidden Bay and brave the wind to head back to the rockpile, since the other boats had left. Caught a couple more there, then decided to leave cause I had enough of this wind. Since the rental boatsonly had trolling motors, it's very difficult to move around in a windy day like today.

Total fish count: 8 fish, biggest one at about 4 1/2 lbs.
Lures: Roboworm in Aaron's Magic color fished on a dropshot.
           Yum Money Craw in white, texas rigged.

Lake Poway - April 24...Fishing the Spawn

Got to Lake Poway around 6:00 am. Got in the boat and headed straight out to the other side of the opposite the boat dock looking for late spawners.

Just cruised the shoreline for 4 hours and was able to pick off a few late spawners, mostly males biggest one was probably close to a 4-pounds. Weather was cloudy, cold and windy which made it hard for sight fishing. It made it tough to see but also made it hard to hold the boat in position.

It is also spring break so the lake was super crowded, lots of boat in the water and lots shore fishermen as well. Decided to leave between 10:30 to 11:00 am. Fishing was okay, some late spawners but I think the spawn is pretty much over at Lake Poway...

Bed Fishing - Lake Poway

Since the weather was going to be warm, I decided to take off work and hit up one of my favorite fishing hole, Lake Poway.

Got to the lake around 7:30 am, yes I over slept a little. Asked the ranger how the trout fishing was and he said that it had shutdown because of the warm weather, but told me that the bass fishing was great. So, got my boat on the water by 8:00 am. Headed straight out across the lake from the boat ramp to the other end of the bouy line. Awesome, there were only three other boats in the lake.

A little breezy making the water a little choppy, so started out throwing spinnerbait. Got 3 bass in the first 15 minutes. The wind died down not too long after and the lake went glassy, I looked down on the water and there were spawning beds all over with fish on every one of the them. Tied on jigs and picked them off like crazy. I probably ended up fishing about 100 yard of shoreline and ended up landing 17 and had a few come unbuttoned. Definitely one of my better day of fishing in a while. Hear are some photos...

Quit fishing right around 12:30 pm, just got too hot out (90+ degrees) with no shades to hide the boat in. Plan to come back again this coming weekend or maybe during the week next week.

Could Be A New World Record Blue Catfish!

The 130-pound Blue Catfish caught by Greg Bernal in Missouri will not only break the world record by 6-pounds, but could break 3 other records.

If the report was correct that Bernal caught this big monster on 40 lb monofilament line then this big fish will break the IGFA's (International Game Fish Association) Blue Catfish all tackle world record, line class world record and the Missouri State record.

According to Bernal, he fought the big monster for 30 minutes and took him another 30 minutes just to get it in the boat. The big blue catfish is awaiting confirmation by the IGFA, Bernal said that he would mount it on the wall next to the 74 lb blue catfish that he caught previously.

Lake Fulmor - July 14th

This was the last day of our visit at Idyllwild. Checked out of our cabin at 8:00 am, had breakfast in town and headed over to Lake Fulmor to spend the rest of the day before heading home.

We've never been to the this lake before, but have heared a lot about how beautiful this place is. As we drove up and saw this lake, I would have to agree. Though is not the biggest lake, it sure is the most beautiful pond that I have ever seen.

We pulled up the parking lot accross the lake and find that there were only 2 cars there, which was awesome meaning we'd pretty much have the place all to ourselves. We walked accross to the lake and saw that there were a lot of structures such as weeds, grass, submerged trees and boulders. Although trout is the main fishery here, this definitely have the look of a prime bass & bluegill lake, the only problem is that the water on the whole lake is green from the algae bloom which happens in the warmer months. This explains why we did not get one bite in the 2 hours we fished. We just about tried everything: frogs, spinnerbait, senkos, jigs, dropshot and even tried live nightcrawlers for nothing...not even a nibble. I would guess that the best fishing here will be in the colders month, winter and spring. I would not recommend coming here in the summer for fishing, unless you just want to come up and enjoy the tranquil surrounding and relax.

Anyways, stayed here for a couple of hours and headed home. Although we did not catch any fish, Lake Fulmor is the definitely a jewel in the mountain. We truely fell in love with this fond and will definitely come back here in the future.

Lake Hemet During the Earthquacke

After the 4th of July holiday, my wife and I decided to go away to Idyllwild for a few days. We got the on Tuesday morning, check in to our cabin and just checkout the town the rest of the day. Beautiful little town..

We got up the next morning and headed down to Lake Hemet, which was about 10 miles away from where we were staying. Got to the lake late in the morning, rented a boat and started fishing some the small coves we found. We fished from the boat until a little after noon when the wind started blowing hard.

When the wind started howling, it really made it hard to control the boat so we decided to turn the boat in and fish from shore.

We headed outside the fenced in area and drove over to the end of the lake and found this little cove all to ourselves. Started fishing for bass for awhile but to no luck, but then started seeing lots of frys on the swimming around, they I see this shaddow on the water chasing each others. Got the light gear out, tied on a small hook and cut up nightcrawler.

First cast, hook a nice sunfish then another, the another. It stayed that way for a couple of hours, it seemed that we found and spawning bed for sunfish and bluegills. 

We were on a hot bite for awhile, with fish on every cast until the earthquacke hit. I've never experience an earthquacke while fishing. All we heard was this rolling noise, cracking rocks and birds flying. We weren't really sure what was going on till the ground started shaking, which was pretty cool. Anyways, the bite somehow turned off after that, so we headed back to Idyllwild.

It was fun fishing a lake for the first time. Weather was nice, it was warm but not as hot as it usually is this time of the year.

Sightfishing Dixon Lake

Decided to fish Dixon Lake on Friday, a day after a full moon. Got to the lake about 6:30 am, got the boat and I was on my way. While I made my way over to Bass Point, I reached in my pocket for my polarized sunglasses and realized that I had left it at home. I was very angry at myself at that point, what is sightfishing without the polarized, especially with this lake being a little windy.

Anyways, I had no choice but to make do without them. So, I started fishing bass point, could not see any fish but went ahead and did some blind casting with the spinnerbait. Managed to get 2 bass right around 2 lbs. Headed over to bass cove and saw a lot of fish over 5 lbs just cruishing around, just could not get them to hit. I pretty much fished this area almost the whole day, managed to hook 4 bedfish here and also caught some on flukes and jigs.

At around noon the wind picked up and my battery went dead, so I had to paddle back to the boat dock. If any of you fished Dixon Lake before, you know how hard that wind blows. So paddling back to the dock when you're on the other side of the lake is no fun at all. The gentleman at the dock asked me if I wanted a new battery put it, but after all the paddling, I was beat. Decided to call the day, with 9 fish caught & release, all solid fish. My take was that, it was just the first leg of the spawn and will continue during this month, Dixon is always one of the last lakes to spawn around here. Lots of fun, hope to get back again next week.

Lake El Capitan-Thurs. April 29

Got up at 4:30 pm and started my drive to Lake El Capitan. On my way there, it started raining and the wind was picking up so I had a feeling that this was not going to be a fun day out in the water. El Capitan get pretty crazy when the wind is blowing, and the forecast for the day was high wind.

Anyways, met up with a couple of friends there at about 5:45 am. The wind was not bad when we got there and the rain seemed to have stopped. We launced the boat and started fishing a cove, we managed to hook 1 on a fluke.

We then made our way back to the north end of the lake. The water level was way up so a lot of sunk down trees around. We pretty much spent the whole day in this spot to get out of the wind and fished around the trees. We caught a lot fish tight to the banks on frogs, flukes, dropshot and flylined senkos. We fished from 6:30 am to 1:00 pm and managed to catch & release around 25 bass, all were solid fish between 2 to 4 pounds.

Fun day and definitely one of my better day at Lake El Capitan.

Lake Dixon 3/22/10

Dropped my nephew off to Wild Animal Park to meet his grandparents, while I headed down to fish Lake Dixon. Got there around 10:00 am, the lake wasn't as crowded as I thought it was going to be. The lake is usually very crowded during springtime with fisherman looking for those big spawning bass, but it is still pretty early in the spawning season for Lake Dixon. Lake Dixon is usually the last lake in southern California for spawn.

Anyways, I went cruising around in the shoreline for spawning bass. I saw some early spawners but definitely not a full blown spawning season yet for the reason being that the water is still cold. I did see a couple of big females cruising around on the north side of the lake.

As I walked down the shoreline, I found and worked a bed with a female and a male bass on it. I could not get the female to bite, but the male was very aggresive. The small male bass had taken my lure about 4 times without me setting the hook hoping that the female does not get spook. By the 5th time, I finally got frustrated with the male and set my hook on him and released him a few yards down the shoreline. So I walk back to try and work on the female bass only to find that the male bass was back, that's when I decided to walk away and do some blind casting with the spinnerbait instead.

Ended the day with a couple of small bass caught on spinnerbait and senko worms. Fun day, it was warm and little breezy at the lake. Hope to come back in about a month for the full-blown spawning season.

Trout Fishing - Lake Poway 1/2

Woke up at about 4:30 am, packed up some food and off I go to Lake Poway to try my luck again with the trout.

Got to the lake around 5:30 am, driving up to the parking lot to find out that it is almost full. Looks like it's going to be a busy day, which turned out to be just that. After getting my permit, I started walking the very limited shore access due to high water level and the numbers of anglers fishing the shorelines.

Finally, I settled on a spot just before Boulder Bay and pretty much stayed in the spot for 6 hours. Ended up catching 3 small trouts soaking Powerbait in rainbow color. Left the lake at about noon, never did see many people catching fish. I think that I only saw 1 fish in a stringer while walking back to the car.

A very disappointing day for me, 3 fish in 6 hours, but it beats working so I take it any day.

Trout Fishing - Lake Poway 11/27

Got to Lake Poway kinda late at a little after 7 am, over slept. Fish the Half-moon Bay most of the day. Managed to get 2 little ones, but lost a big one. 

Sitting there soaking Powerbait in rainbow color when this fish started taking line, took about half a spool of my 4lb. test line. Seconds later the fish leaped a foot out of the water and snapped my line. I don't know how much he weighed but got a good look at him, I would say that he had to be at least 6 to 7 pounds. That really hurt.

Anyways, I only saw one angler leave with a limit (4 fish) at about 11:30 am. He said that he was there at the crack of dawn, apparently they were biting early then died off when the sun came out. It looked like he had a couple of fish that were over 5 pounds and the others are probably around 2 to 2.5 pound. I caught one of fish with the rainbow Powerbait and the other with a nightcrawler & Powerbait combo. I maybe going back to Lake Poway again this coming weekend and I'm going to make sure that I there super early.

Fishing: Lake Poway 11-14-09

Got to Lake Poway around 7:00 am, a little cold and not many people on the lake. Got my permit and walked all the way to boulder bay. 

Right away I saw bass chasing shads, so I thought it's a good time to try this rig I saw on FLW last week, the "double fluke." Third cast and got fish on, fish landed but a dink, maybe a pound. A few more cast, produced another one of about the same size, maybe I tiny bit bigger. 

About 10:00 am, 2 guys walks up and set camp next to me to fish for cats. Moments later, one guy started coughing out his lungs, I turned around and saw that they were smoking some ganja, so I thought it was time to leave.

Worked my way back to the boatdock and fish the chainlink fence on the left of the dock. Saw bass busting on shad on the no fishing zone, but could not reach them with my cast. So I switched to a senko and managed 1 more fish, about a 2 lber. Left the Lake Poway at 11:30, ended up with 3 fish in 4 hours, not good but beats the skunk.

Fishing: Lake El Capitan 10-17-09

When I got to work last Friday, my friend/co-worker Steve ask me if I wanted to do some fishing on the weekend. I said yes, ofcourse, and he then left me to decide on which lake to fish. Since I have not fished Lake El Capitan for sometime, it became my choice.

Met up with Steve at his house at 6:00 am Saturday morning and off to Lake El Capitan we were. Got to the lake at 6:30 am only to find out that there was a tournament going on. So we ended up waiting in line behind 20 boats before we could launch. Luckily, Lake El Capitan had a pretty wide boat ramp. Finally got on the water a little before 7:00 am.

Headed down and started fishing the north end of the lake, air temp was 71 degrees, water temp was 65. We started throwing some topwater to start the day but for nothing. I later switch to Senko worm and managed a dink. Switched to jigs for nothing, tried spinnerbait & cranks for nothing. 

It's now 10:30 am, fishing is tough and the burning sun was even tougher. Temperature was creeping up and is now over 90 degrees with no wind at all. So we jetted down by the dam and started fishing with a dropshot rig. Managed to catch 2.5 lbr on the first cast of the dropshotted Roboworm, but that was about it.

It is at noon time when we decided that we had suffered enough, not just from the heat but also from the frustration of the a tough day of fishing. We leave Lake El Capitan with the air temp at 97 degrees and water temp at 73 degrees. I ended up with a couple of fish and Steve got none. It may not have been a good day of fishing, but it was still fun just being out there enjoying the sport that I love.

Fishing - Santee Lakes 4 & 5

After a stressful week of work, I decided to do some fishing for relaxation the next day which is Saturday. Got up early and decided fish Santee Lakes that morning.

Got to the lake around 6:15 am when the sun is just coming up. Headed straight to Lake 5. Started out throwing some topwater bait, but to no luck. Walked to the other side of the lake and saw some fish busting the surface. Rigged up a fluke in shad color weightless. Cast out, jerk..jerk..and BAM!!! fish on. Got the fish in a solid 2.5 lbr. Continued fishing the fluke for a couple of hours just walking around the lake and managed a couple of more. After a couple of hours on Lake 5, decided to try Lake 4. Saw a guy catch a fish with a spinnerbait, sadly, I didn't bring any with me. So instead, I tied on a crankbait in sexy shad color. With the second cast of the crankbait, fish on. Stuck with the crankbait for an hour, but that was the only fish I caugh with it.

After 4 hours of fishing, I decided to call it the day because it was starting to get pretty hot and I promised my wife that I would to a barbeque party with her. So another fine day of fishing.

Yellowtail Fishing: La Jolla Kelp

Got out on Sunday morning  for some calico fishing at La Jolla kelp beds. Launched at about 5:30 am with a my fishing bro, overcast and glassy to start. Started throwing some plastic swimbaits and managed a few calicos. When the marine layer burned off, sun came up, the wind kicked in and so did the bite. 

We went out in hope of catching a few calicos, but did not expect all of the yellowtail we would see. Every cast of the swimbait there would be 2 or 3 yellowtails following it. They are not be very big, may be in the 5lb class which are the best eating anyways. My bro was using a slug while I was using a swimbait. We both managed to land 1 yellowtail each, my bro hooked what looked to be may 10-12 lb but when I was about to gaff it, it made a mad dash to the bottom, got caught on the kelp and broke off. 

If only we had know there were going to be this many yellowtails around, we would have brought some live baits. Anyways, had a lot of fun and hope to get back out again next weekend. Just hope the water stays warm like it is now, at high 70s.

Fishing - Lake Murray 8/15/09

Decided to hit up Lake Murray last Saturday morning. Got there at about 6:30am and fished the west side of the lake by the baseball field. Started out with topwater using the Rage Toad, awesome bait. Got a few blowups but only managed 1, a nice 3.5 lbr, I guess I should be a little more patient and not set the hook too soon. Switched to a dropshot, using Roboworm MM and manage a couple of dinks. Left the lake at 11:00 am, ended up 3 fish. Like always, fun time.

Gear:

Abu Garcia Revo S w/50lb Power Pro braid on 7ft med-heavy Fenwick HMXT70MH baitcast rod. Lure=Strike King's Rage Toad

Daiwa Exceler 1500 with 4/lb flouro on a Fenwick HMXS70 spinning rod use for dropshot. Lure=Roboworm MM

Bluegill Fishing: Santee Lakes

Went down to the Bloodbank to donate blood at 8 a.m. on Saturday. Came home and rested for awhile, till my wife walks in the room and asked me if I wanted to go bluegill fishing. I jumped right out of bed and grabbed the rods, packed up some food & beers and off we went.

Got to the lake at around 2:00 pm, got some nightcrawlers and we were ready to go. We asked one of the rangers where the good bluegill spot were in pointed us to a spot. Cut down the crawlers to small pieces, rigged up a bobber and handed off the rod to my wife. Before I can start rigging mine up she was already hooked up. Just constant bite after that, none were really big but plentiful and fun. We stayed at the same spot all day, well, the 4 hours that were there. Caught lots of fish and got to spend some quality time with wife, it was a great day.