Natural Lefty
03-27-2010, 03:29 PM
Ah, Perris in the spring -- dirty diapers, broken beer bottles, beer and soda cans galore, snack food containers, tangles of fishing line along the shoreline, rusty hooks -- how romantic!
Actually, that is something I have wanted to say for a long time. :Wink:We didn't see any of that trash yesterday, but have on some occasions.
After lunch and a trip to the bank, Eunice and I headed to Perris and arrived around 3 p.m. This is only after nixing other options, mostly involving Silverwood Lake. Eunice didn't want to pay for dock fishing, and she didn't want to hike very far to my trout spot at Silverwood, either, so I thought I might as well take her to the nearshore marina dock area at Lake Perris. This area has only been open to fishing for a few months, and I don't think Eunice had ever fished there before.
Her fishing experience there started on an excellent note. She sat down in her purple fishing chair and read her magazine, dropped her line down with one of our homegrown little worms on a minijig, but after a few minutes, she kept feeling light tapping on her line, so she reeled up and had a decent size fish on. To our surprise when she got it close enough to the surface to see, it was a nice size Crappie. With her lack of hook setting skill ("setting the hook" doesn't seem to be in Eunice's vocabulary, yet she manages to catch her share of fish), I figured I had better net this one. Immediately after I scooped it up in the net, the hook fell out of the fish's mouth. I think the fish most likely would have fallen off the hook, had she tried to pull it out of the water on her own. Some other people on the dock were envious of Eunice, in a friendly way. One man jokingly offered to buy the fish from her.
A few minutes later, while still reading her magazine, Eunice pulled up a little Bluegill which she released. I started to have success too before long -- nothing big but I caught a somewhat larger Bluegill on a piece of nightcrawler, then to my surprise, a smallish Crappie of my own, also on a piece of nightcrawler. Both Crappies bit extremely lightly, and I was unable to get bit on a minijig, which I tried for a total of about 1/2 hour, so I don't think there were many Crappie around, but there obviously were a few.
Meanwhile, my former student and current fishing buddy Tsai showed up. He said he had been to Fresno during the week, but had just returned. He mentioned something about replacing a tooth filling, so there wasn't much for him to do but go fishing. He couldn't even eat solid food all day, and his mouth hurt, so I felt badly for him. He told me that he wound up with 8 Redears last Saturday, with his brother and his father doing about the same. Yesterday was a different story, with more Bluegills (plus our Crappies) and far fewer Redears, but still a few of them. Tsai kept missing bites, and wound up catching only 2 small Bluegills which both swallowed the hook, so he kept them. He also lost a larger fish that broke his line. By the way, it looked as though he was also using homegrown worms for bait. I have never seen so many people using homegrown worms until these past couple of weeks -- us, Tsai's family, Dave, although the nightcrawlers were from Wal-Mart.
A couple of other interesting things happened during this time. At one point, a man fishing from the main ramp a ways away from us caught a really small, silvery fish about 4 inches long. I couldn't see it clearly. I thought it was a shad, but he claimed it was a Trout. Hmm, very strange indeed! I thought Trout could not spawn at Perris Lake, and I doubt the DFG has stocked any fingerlings there. Maybe some Trout managed to spawn in the runoff at the east end of the lake, or where the aquaduct water is piped in. Then, a couple of guys came in from a boat fishing excursion with a hefty stringer of about 20 Redears, maybe a Bluegill or 2, and 3 stockerish Trout. Two of the Redears were very large, well over a pound, but the others were only about a quarter pound each, I would say. They said they caught them behind the island. I guess that explains what happened to the Redears; most of them probably left the marina to head for spawning areas toward the east end of the lake. By the way, the number of sunfish they had was nowhere near the new limit of 25 per person, even though it was already a lot of fish.
At 5 p.m. the white-haired gentleman who closes the big black gate asked everyone to move to the shoreward side of it, so we obliged before he closed the gate. After that, I tried fishing the little area that is surrounded by docks on 3 sides (a great flyfishing spot in the evenings for small Bluegills) using nightcrawler pieces, and in short order, caught a somewhat smaller Bluegill, which I released after consulting Eunice, then a Bass of about 8 inches, which I also released. All 4 of my fish to this point were caught on my mini ugly stick strung with 6 pound line (I believe), and nightcrawler pieces. Maybe it is only the Redears that are really picky about line size. However, I had strung two poles with 2 pound line this week, and finally caught an okay size Bluegill on one of them casting to the left of the ramp, on a homegrown worm. Eunice also had a small fish on over there, but it came off before we saw it.
That was it fishwise. We all had to get out of there before 6, or risk being locked inside the park. There were about 10 other people fishing on the docks, all in the free area with none in the pay area. I think a couple of them went fishless, but I saw the rest catch between 1-3 fish. There were also a fair number of fish caught before we got there, which could be seen in baskets. There were a couple of stockerish Trout and a couple of small to medium size Redears included among these, which makes at least 5 species caught from these docks yesterday. Eunice and I had the only two Crappie, and I caught the most fish of anyone while there (5), though nothing big. Eunice spent almost the entire time reading her magazine, except at the very end when she used her technique of slowly working a worm which she is good at. Hmm, I think she might have caught more fish if she had paid more attention. :Confused: She kept reeling in empty hooks. That magazine must have been really interesting.
I am looking forward to the lake being open until 10 p.m., and plan to return next week to fish until dark, although today Eunice and I had fairly good results despite having to leave before 6 :Cool:
Here's the catch:
Me -- 3 Bluegills (2 kept, 1 released), 1 smallish Crappie (kept), 1 small Bass (released);
Eunice -- 1 fat 10 1/2 inch Crappie (kept), 1 small Bluegill (released);
Tsai -- 2 small Bluegills kept due to swallowing the hook;
Others -- 0 - 3 assorted smallish Bluegills, small to medium Redears, stockerish Trout, a 12-13 inch Bass on plastics, and 1 possible baby Trout.
We did not bring a camera with us to Lake Perris, but I did take this photo of Eunice in our kitchen with our 1 picture worthy fish of the day. Notice Eunice's Bass cup in the background, with pictures of several species of "Bass." The fish we kept were our tasty main entree for lunch today.
Actually, that is something I have wanted to say for a long time. :Wink:We didn't see any of that trash yesterday, but have on some occasions.
After lunch and a trip to the bank, Eunice and I headed to Perris and arrived around 3 p.m. This is only after nixing other options, mostly involving Silverwood Lake. Eunice didn't want to pay for dock fishing, and she didn't want to hike very far to my trout spot at Silverwood, either, so I thought I might as well take her to the nearshore marina dock area at Lake Perris. This area has only been open to fishing for a few months, and I don't think Eunice had ever fished there before.
Her fishing experience there started on an excellent note. She sat down in her purple fishing chair and read her magazine, dropped her line down with one of our homegrown little worms on a minijig, but after a few minutes, she kept feeling light tapping on her line, so she reeled up and had a decent size fish on. To our surprise when she got it close enough to the surface to see, it was a nice size Crappie. With her lack of hook setting skill ("setting the hook" doesn't seem to be in Eunice's vocabulary, yet she manages to catch her share of fish), I figured I had better net this one. Immediately after I scooped it up in the net, the hook fell out of the fish's mouth. I think the fish most likely would have fallen off the hook, had she tried to pull it out of the water on her own. Some other people on the dock were envious of Eunice, in a friendly way. One man jokingly offered to buy the fish from her.
A few minutes later, while still reading her magazine, Eunice pulled up a little Bluegill which she released. I started to have success too before long -- nothing big but I caught a somewhat larger Bluegill on a piece of nightcrawler, then to my surprise, a smallish Crappie of my own, also on a piece of nightcrawler. Both Crappies bit extremely lightly, and I was unable to get bit on a minijig, which I tried for a total of about 1/2 hour, so I don't think there were many Crappie around, but there obviously were a few.
Meanwhile, my former student and current fishing buddy Tsai showed up. He said he had been to Fresno during the week, but had just returned. He mentioned something about replacing a tooth filling, so there wasn't much for him to do but go fishing. He couldn't even eat solid food all day, and his mouth hurt, so I felt badly for him. He told me that he wound up with 8 Redears last Saturday, with his brother and his father doing about the same. Yesterday was a different story, with more Bluegills (plus our Crappies) and far fewer Redears, but still a few of them. Tsai kept missing bites, and wound up catching only 2 small Bluegills which both swallowed the hook, so he kept them. He also lost a larger fish that broke his line. By the way, it looked as though he was also using homegrown worms for bait. I have never seen so many people using homegrown worms until these past couple of weeks -- us, Tsai's family, Dave, although the nightcrawlers were from Wal-Mart.
A couple of other interesting things happened during this time. At one point, a man fishing from the main ramp a ways away from us caught a really small, silvery fish about 4 inches long. I couldn't see it clearly. I thought it was a shad, but he claimed it was a Trout. Hmm, very strange indeed! I thought Trout could not spawn at Perris Lake, and I doubt the DFG has stocked any fingerlings there. Maybe some Trout managed to spawn in the runoff at the east end of the lake, or where the aquaduct water is piped in. Then, a couple of guys came in from a boat fishing excursion with a hefty stringer of about 20 Redears, maybe a Bluegill or 2, and 3 stockerish Trout. Two of the Redears were very large, well over a pound, but the others were only about a quarter pound each, I would say. They said they caught them behind the island. I guess that explains what happened to the Redears; most of them probably left the marina to head for spawning areas toward the east end of the lake. By the way, the number of sunfish they had was nowhere near the new limit of 25 per person, even though it was already a lot of fish.
At 5 p.m. the white-haired gentleman who closes the big black gate asked everyone to move to the shoreward side of it, so we obliged before he closed the gate. After that, I tried fishing the little area that is surrounded by docks on 3 sides (a great flyfishing spot in the evenings for small Bluegills) using nightcrawler pieces, and in short order, caught a somewhat smaller Bluegill, which I released after consulting Eunice, then a Bass of about 8 inches, which I also released. All 4 of my fish to this point were caught on my mini ugly stick strung with 6 pound line (I believe), and nightcrawler pieces. Maybe it is only the Redears that are really picky about line size. However, I had strung two poles with 2 pound line this week, and finally caught an okay size Bluegill on one of them casting to the left of the ramp, on a homegrown worm. Eunice also had a small fish on over there, but it came off before we saw it.
That was it fishwise. We all had to get out of there before 6, or risk being locked inside the park. There were about 10 other people fishing on the docks, all in the free area with none in the pay area. I think a couple of them went fishless, but I saw the rest catch between 1-3 fish. There were also a fair number of fish caught before we got there, which could be seen in baskets. There were a couple of stockerish Trout and a couple of small to medium size Redears included among these, which makes at least 5 species caught from these docks yesterday. Eunice and I had the only two Crappie, and I caught the most fish of anyone while there (5), though nothing big. Eunice spent almost the entire time reading her magazine, except at the very end when she used her technique of slowly working a worm which she is good at. Hmm, I think she might have caught more fish if she had paid more attention. :Confused: She kept reeling in empty hooks. That magazine must have been really interesting.
I am looking forward to the lake being open until 10 p.m., and plan to return next week to fish until dark, although today Eunice and I had fairly good results despite having to leave before 6 :Cool:
Here's the catch:
Me -- 3 Bluegills (2 kept, 1 released), 1 smallish Crappie (kept), 1 small Bass (released);
Eunice -- 1 fat 10 1/2 inch Crappie (kept), 1 small Bluegill (released);
Tsai -- 2 small Bluegills kept due to swallowing the hook;
Others -- 0 - 3 assorted smallish Bluegills, small to medium Redears, stockerish Trout, a 12-13 inch Bass on plastics, and 1 possible baby Trout.
We did not bring a camera with us to Lake Perris, but I did take this photo of Eunice in our kitchen with our 1 picture worthy fish of the day. Notice Eunice's Bass cup in the background, with pictures of several species of "Bass." The fish we kept were our tasty main entree for lunch today.