Riverside Bass Fishing

Updates? Here's one. Life has been oh so busy but I'm still fishing. Fairmount Park, Seccombe, Ford, Perris, even a trip to Diamond Valley Lake. I have piles of photos on my computer from the trips, but haven't uploaded them. It used to be that I was thrilled to fish, get home and show the trophy pictures to my friends
I was hunting crappie at Fairmount Park in Riverside, Dirty IE, California, scratched one crappie off the roots, then moved to the "other" pond at the park. Was fishing with one of my buds, he was throwing bass gear and I was working the panfish gear (light tackle, 4lb mono, collapsible spinning rod/reel). I'm always amazed at how crazy Fairmount is. As we were fishing, the police pulled over a car 5ft from our spot, then proceeded to arrest the driver and haul off the car. As this was going down,I felt the faintest tap, then another. Set the hook, and boom, I'm into something that's definitely not a crappie. Tries to take me into the lily pads (good luck on 4lb test, right?), but he eventually plays nice and comes to the shore. Quick photo-op, place him back in the water, grab the pliers to unhook him, and he takes off-snap! At least I got the pic. Not a terribly huge bass, but a nice for for the 'mount.
Fairmount has really been better for me these last few months. Previously, it was almost a guaranteed skunk here. Glad to shake that season off.

Midnight Monsters

During the early part of October, we had some killer weather. Super hot days, triple digits, with evenings that stayed in the 70s. Great weather-for evening bass fishing! I started fishing my Rage Toad Strike King frogs, Texas Rigged and weightless. Ripping them across mats drew loads of strikes-including one monster that snapped me after exploding through the grass. I hooked far more than I landed, unfortunately.

Check out that belly, hahaha!
On one of these nights, the moon was totally full, and the fish treated the open water like a clear-sky, sunny day. Fish wouldn't come out from under the trees or mats, perhaps spooked by how illuminated the water from from the moon. I haven't seen that before, certainly wouldn't have predicted it either.

Also managed to get one fish on a new lure-a chatterbait! I am still learning how to fish these jig/spinner hybrids, but they sure have a great vibration. Landing fish right away on a new lure really helps build confidence in it.

The usual (saltwater) suspects...

As much as a I love bass fishing, I can't resist hitting the salt. The sheer variety of fish to be caught brings me back every time. I've been fishing the ocean the last few weeks, and caught these while fishing a jetty in Orange County. Here's a little perch, caught while throwing jigs tipped with cut shrimp.

Spottie! I love how these fish absolutely nail your lure, fight like a saltwater smallmouth bass, never give up. I need to learn more about targeting these guys, I usually only end up with loads of dinks.

The sculpin here are awesome. This guy totally caught me by surprise, quite the mouth on him. Check out those colors! The water near the jetty's have lots of salad right now, making the fishing pretty tricky, but it's worth it.

I love Newport Beach. It can be super crowded at times, but just getting down to the ocean from the stinky Inland Empire is so absolutely worth it.
I've been getting into some epic freshwater largemouth bass action lately, lots of pics to come soon!

Blastin' the Fly

When I'm not fishing, I'm probably perusing the myriad of fishing videos on the 'net. Feast your eyes on this awesome YouTube find:

Someday, I'll leave my spinning gear at home and try to learn fly fishing, properly (Top secret: I do have a fly rod, just haven't bothered to use it much). While I love fishing conventional gear, there is something magical about fly fishing. Forget skinny trout, I'll be chasing the fat greenies, throwing topwaters frogs and mice.
P.S.Fishing tomorrow and Sunday. Hooray!

Hunting at Fairmount Park

Night fishing has proven to be a tricky beast for me to tackle. I only have the confidence to fish a select few lures, mostly topwaters. I desperately need to branch out and try some other approaches, but the excitement of late night surface explosions keeps bringing me back. It's hard to beat the rush from a massive strike when it's pitch black outside.

(More after the jump)

Green Sunfish + Urban Creek

Caught these green sunfish in an urban creek in California. Green sunfish seem to be found wherever there is water-city park ponds, major reservoirs, even dinky storm drain creeks (as was the case for these). You can tell Green Sunfish from Pumpkinseed Sunfish based on their relative mouth sizes-the Greenies have larger mouths, almost like juvenile largemouth bass.
I would rather catch bass, but hey, it's better than a skunk, right?

Lake Perris

I fished Lake Perris for bass and sunfish a couple of weeks back. This report is super old, but better late than never, right?

Tried exploring the shoreline of Lake Perris for a few hours, hoping to find some hidden spots. It's really overgrown, but at least they don't fence it off, like at other lakes. Spotted two deer, couldn't get very close.

Somebody is missing their floatie.

The bite was slow, to say the least. The boat traffic was insane, loads of people jet skiing, and racing around on the water. Really choppy, and much more algae than I have encountered before. The topwater action at dusk was awful, nothing like spring or early summer. Only managed this dinky dink largemouth bass.

I stopped by Fairmount on the way home, hoping to score with some night bass. No dice, but I did run into this hoodlum. Raccoons and people compete for the trashbin leftovers at night here, fun to watch.

Fairmount Park in Riverside Largemouth Bass

Fairmount Park in Riverside offers loads of water, lots of cover and absurdly well-educated largemouth bass. They'll just laugh at your pathetic attempts to catch them, no matter how realistic your lure is. Such was the case for me at this city park in California. My first trip to Fairmount landed me one largemouth (last year), but I haven't been able to catch one since, until tonight.

Oh, I do love a good topwater explosion. Best part of bass fishing, IMHO.

Thanks, Fairmount.

California Bass Lures

Remember that 7lber I caught a few weeks back? I lost the lure I was using and thought I would stock up on a few more. eBay came through for me and I scored on the above lures for about $1 each. They are cheap and ugly, but they'll work. Hooray for Chinese knock-off lures!

Inland Empire Bassin'

Got these nice largemouths in California at the same place where I got the 7lber (last post). Really nice fish, the top two were my biggest, at 15'' and 14'' each. My Canon digital camera ran out of battery for the 15'', had to resort to ghetto cell phone pic. Lots of thick algae and muck in the water, the summer algae bloom is really showing its colors. Everything was caught on 4'' Yum Dingers, shad two-tone color. This pond needs more water, soon and very soon.

Monster Bass

New personal best for me. Great way to start time fishing in SoCal. Caught a load of dinks earlier in the day, than, last cast of the day, nailed this 22 inch beast. Throw in girth measurements and it was around 7.5lbs.
Secret spot, Inland Empire. 6lb test mono. 8:00 pm. Hardbody swimbait.
I'm getting waaay behind schedule with some of theses posts, caught this guy almost two weeks ago, but life has been very busy! More pics of the fish, plus more detailed report over at FishingNetwork forum.

Columbia River Smallmouth Bass

My last fishing trip of summer 2010 in Washington state had to be something different from what I normally encounter in California. So, I went after Micropterus dolomieu. The Columbia River has a world-class fishery for them, even in the heavily-developed parts near Vancouver and Portland, Oregon.
Got to my spot a little later than usual, sun was fading fast and I didn't have much time to fish. I wasn't expecting much, as evening always seemed to be a bad time for smallmouth fishing for me. The heavy pleasure boat traffic wasn't really helping either. So, I was super glad to spot 2-3 fat fish tailing my jig after I made a few casts. Couldn't get them to commit, so I switched up to a the beloved Yum Dinger, shad color. Boom, fish on, second cast. These kids can FIGHT! The one pictured above was only 13 inches, but he refused to come to the shore on my 4lb test ultralight gear.

Lost two more fish on the Dinger, than switched to back to the jig. Nothing. So, I grabbed one of my hand-poured drop shot minnows. Immediately I had fish on, unfortunately most of them came off. I managed to land one, this scrappy little smallmouth bass. I also hooked and pulled in a yellow perch, surprise, surprise. Didn't expect that at this spot, I guess the warmer weather really brought them in. I love catching fish on lures I've made myself, great feeling.
Goodbye (for now) Washington. It's been a splendid summer.
Hello, Cali.

Round Lake Washington Sunfish Fishing

As my summer in Washington was finding down, I went back to one of my favorite lakes, Round Lake. Situated in Camas, Washington, it's the little brother of the Lacamas Lake. Both are popular for warmwater fish, although Lacamas receives most of the attention. I started fishing for bass but switched to ultralight gear for the sunfish. This is my first crappie from Round, great feeling to finally catch one in Washington!

I caught mostly bluegill, although I did nab two yellow perch, and the crappie. There is a lot of small yellow perch schools here, not quite big enough to eat. Bass are harder to find, although I've caught decent ones here before.

I love this picture. Look closely, you will see the crappie stacked up, hovering in the water underneath the log. I had to fiddle with the photo's contrast settings to get it to turn out. There was probably double this number, all schooling in the area. They were insanely hard to catch, refusing all manners of jigs, baits and micro lures.

I caught most of the fish on wet flies (small ant patterns), microjigs, or Berkely plastic trout worms (great!). Did manage my last fish of the day on a Yo-Zuri Aile Killifish, one of my favorite sunfish lures. It's a floating topwater, diving on retrieve, with a tight wiggle. Back has a tiny, plastic blade, giving off little fluttering motions when twitched.

More SW Washington Bass Fishing

This blog is about to undergo a BIG change (I recently moved!), but I have a couple of left-over trips I would like to post beforehand. Enjoy these photos from one of my outings about a week ago, at some quarry ponds. The fish weren't as large as they've been in the past, but they made up for it in numbers. I also scored my first Washington swimbait bass, a skinny 14 incher that hit my Megabass Rainbow Trout 3.5 inch swimbait on a steady retrieve (top left fish in the collage). Oh, happy days of summer...

Hand Pour Plastics for Bass

Found an old jar of plastic worm liquid. Still had a few molds left over, plus a few RTV custom molds I had made. Oh, and three bottles of worm dyes. Warned everyone, then cracked open the windows on the house, turned all the fans onto "High" and started messing with some hand pours. They turned out pretty well, for not having done any pouring for 5 years+

Making your own lures and catching fish on them absolutely rocks. It's one of the most satisfying experiences in fishing. Tackle Underground is where I love to get new ideas for custom lures, the guys on there on super skilled.

Klineline Park Bass

I have been a little disappointed with this pond at Klinline park in Vancouver, Washington. Usually, I can count on it to produce several quality largemouth and other species. However, I fished it hard Friday evening with nothing to show for several hours. Not even a nibble. I threw plastics, Rooster tail's, Rapala's and topwater poppers. Nothing.

Came back the next morning, got there a little later than I wanted and the sun was already high in the sky, sending the fish deep. Managed this nice bass off of the shore on the Dinger, but nothing else.

Here's a little close-up action on this guy, great fish. Klineline (Salmon Creek Park) has some decent fish, but they can be tough to find. If anyone else has caught largemouth there, send me some pics, I'd love to see them.

Camas Bass Fishing

I fished my favorite secret bass ponds in Camas with a friend last Friday, taking the raft out for one last summer spin. Saw enormous carp, hordes of baitfish, sunfish and dink largemouth bass. Managed three fish, including one on a Gitzit jig lure.

D-d-d-dink!

Nice largemouth bass, great fighter for its size. Probably just a little over 1lb, but the best bass I caught all day. Wacky-rigged Yum Dinger, 4lb mono, caught him in 10-15 feet of water. Nice hot weather, pushing all the bigger fish deep. I should have dropshotted the place, but I couldn't bring myself to tie on another rig, lol.

Fishing for bass and sunfish in Tulsa, Oklahoma

I spent about 1 week in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Fishing was great, cost of a five day license for non-residents was not great. Still, I got my money's worth, fishing hardcore, even with the triple digit temperatures. Tulsa is a great place for anglers, loads of public ponds and lakes all over, with all kinds of warmwater species. I hit up the Arkansas River, near Zinc Dam, and other spots. Also fished many different public parks with little ponds all over Tulsa. These are loaded with warmwater species, most anglers fishing them just do the old "bait-and-wait" routine, so the fish certainly don't mind lures.

Look at this little fat bluegill! Great colors, real bruiser. Caught while fishing a Berkely Gulp Minnow, Shad pattern, wacky-rigged.

Here kitty, kitty, kitty!
(Channel Cat, Arkansas River)

(See the nasty sores on the green sunfish in the collage? Gross)
I caught quite a few largemouth bass, fishing shaded areas heavily during the clear, sunny weather. Yum Dingers and Berkely Gulp minnows seemed to be the ticket. I did toss out an old favorite of mine, a Berkely purple worm, almost 6 years old, still catches fish.
I'll miss the fishing in Tulsa, but I certainly won't miss the weather.
Super thanks to my friends in Tulsa for taking me out fishing!