Perris 4/2 Panfish mix

[CALFISHER4EVR]

I fished Perris Lake today. Arrived about 8:00 a.m. and headed over to the island area. There was a fair amount of bait fisherman on the south side of the lake. My plan was to fish for largemouth but the bite
seemed real slow for me as I tried different areas of the lake. I metered a lot of pan fish so I decided to switch over and fish for the slabs. I used a ultra light rod and reel set up with 4lbs test. On the line I used a leadhead about 1/8 oz on the end of the line with a hand poured black and chartreuse darter about 1 1/2 in long. Then I used another one with a hook about 2’ up the line. It seemed to do the trick because I hooked onto these to start.
http://i343.photobucket.com/albums/o470/Hook-Set/P4020246.jpg
The bite was not wfo because I had to work for them and move around and find them. I would hook a few slabs and they would move. I stayed in approximately 20ft of water because I did not find any in the shallows yet. Most of the fish where all suspending in the water column from 2 feet from bottom all the way to the surface. The surface temp of the water at midday was about 62 degrees in some areas. I metered some fish about 2’ from the surface and got rewarded with two crappie on a small 1” shad imitation swim bait. I have never caught a crappie at Perris before. Nic e to catch a different species for once. I do not think the gills are on the spawn yet. I kept a few of the mixed bag I caught and gave the other away to my buddy who like to make a soup out of the panfish. Here are a few I saved for myself .
Check them out!
http://i343.photobucket.com/albums/o470/Hook-Set/P4020252.jpg

[bowler]

nice fish.

[old pudd fisher]

Thats nice, pan fishing is my favorite.

[chuxder]

One Male ,One Female, Nice! Good going on locating the slabs.
!

[Natural Lefty]

Greetings fellow Perris Panfisherpeople, I was going to post my own shore/dock fishing report from 4/2, but decided to just piggyback my catch of good numbers/small size to this one.

After the rain was a no-show, :Crying: I had to water the yard Friday morning. After lunch, I gathered some worms from the yard, and headed to Perris. I got there at about 2 p.m. and went to lots 11 and 12. (Why don't they let you park where they used to?) I found the missing docks from the launch ramp had been placed there. I went down there and found lots of company, but lousy fishing -- only one light bite in about 2 hours. The only fish I saw there was about a 12 inch Bass that some guys were putting on a stringer. They looked like friends of the guys next to them who used cusswords in nearly every sentence. I didn't feel like getting cussed at, so I chickened out and didn't tell them about the change in the Bass limit. Hopefully, the ranger found them, although I didn't see any rangers yesterday. By the way, live Bass is $11.99 per pound at 99 Ranch Market, but only $2.99 for dead ones. My wife and I just got back from there a while ago.

At about 4, I went back to the trusty marina docks, where I soon began getting bites, then started catching fish. Between about 4:30-6:30, I caught 12 fish, including 10 Bluegills, a Crappie, and a Redear, so panfish mix was definitely the word of the day. I kept 3 Bluegills, the Crappie and the Redear, and let go the rest of the Bluegills. The fish were on the small side, but it was fun. I would say the Crappie and the Redear were about the size of the Bluegill in the first picture, with the Bluegills ranging from a little smaller, to 3-4 inch dinks. They were all caught on various worms (Redworms, Nightcrawler pieces, etc.) in the free area of the marina docks, on the right side. They bit on 2 pound and 4 pound line, with small hooks, but wouldn't touch the 6 pound line. There were several other people fishing there, but I didn't see any of them catch a single fish. I think most of them were using line that was too heavy, and whole nightcrawlers, but there was one couple that was casting gold Kastmasters.

Other highlights: Lorenzo of Lake Perris fame, and a friend came in from a boat fishing trip, with about 20 Redears, plus maybe a couple of Bluegills and a Trout. All the panfish were only medium size, about 1/4 - 1/2 pound, no big ones.

There was a guy in a wheelchair fishing outside the gate after it was locked, which I guess they let people in wheelchairs do. He made a bad cast that landed about 20 down the dock on the left side. To my surprise:Surprised:, he got out of his wheelchair and retrieved his line. Hmm, it makes me wonder if he just uses the wheelchair to get better dock fishing privileges. He was pretty old and not exactly in the greatest condition, though.

The final highlight was that I got to stay as late as I wanted to, which was 7:30 p.m. (The park closes at 10 p.m. now.) The fish stopped biting by 6:30 p.m. though. I guess they were cold -- so was I. By the end, only the wind was there to keep me company; even the fish seem to have deserted the place around 6:30, but that shouldn't be the case once it gets warmer. Frankly, with the cold weather yesterday, I am surprised the fish bit as much as they did.

[drfeelgood]

That guy is a stud. I've seen him pull in 50 half pound bluegills in an afternoon. I'm scared of crickets so i have to fish with meal worms:LOL::LOL: SO i couldn't catch as much. Can't wait for the weather to warm up so i can bring the kids down to the marina for wide open panfishing!!! The question of the:???: day? IS lorenzo black or mexican???

[Natural Lefty]

drfeelgood, I am not scared of crickets, but they don't seem to work for me. It's strange; I can try to do exactly what other people do with crickets or power bait, when "the fish are biting" and catch nothing, or hardly anything, but I can often catch lots of fish using my own techniques, or finesse fishing with flies or worms when "the fish aren't biting." I used to use mealworms a lot, but found I was badly allergic to them. Actually, there was also a father and teenage son on the docks part of the time, using mealworms. The son kept getting bites, but couldn't hook them. When they left, the son offered the mealworms to me, but I told him of my allergy, so he dropped them in the water.

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread. I just thought it didn't make sense to have 2 panfish variety reports from Perris the same day. Questions about people's racial/ethnic backgrounds may be sensitive topics. It would be best if Lorenzo were to answer that himself. But his last name is Martinez.

Calfish4ever, did you catch all those fish on jigs (artificial with no bait)? Good job! I noticed one of them is a Redear, too, so that is the same 3 species I caught.

[CALFISHER4EVR]

drfeelgood, I am not scared of crickets, but they don't seem to work for me. It's strange; I can try to do exactly what other people do with crickets or power bait, when "the fish are biting" and catch nothing, or hardly anything, but I can often catch lots of fish using my own techniques, or finesse fishing with flies or worms when "the fish aren't biting." I used to use mealworms a lot, but found I was badly allergic to them. Actually, there was also a father and teenage son on the docks part of the time, using mealworms. The son kept getting bites, but couldn't hook them. When they left, the son offered the mealworms to me, but I told him of my allergy, so he dropped them in the water.

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread. I just thought it didn't make sense to have 2 panfish variety reports from Perris the same day. Questions about people's racial/ethnic backgrounds may be sensitive topics. It would be best if Lorenzo were to answer that himself. But his last name is Martinez.

Calfish4ever, did you catch all those fish on jigs (artificial with no bait)? Good job! I noticed one of them is a Redear, too, so that is the same 3 species I caught.

Thanks guys for the thumbs up!

Lefty, I used only artificial jigs for these fish. They hit the red worms good too. Sometimes I would use a crawfish scent to change it up. When I would meter a school I would catch some and they would stop biting. Then I would change color or add the scent. Move away come back later Sometimes I would throw a small 1" crankbait into the shallow that dives about three feet and hit good size redear.
It just depend on what I see on the graph.

[Natural Lefty]

You caught Redears on crankbaits? That is cool.

When the fish get more active in the shallows, I try to catch fish on artificials as much as I can. I catch lots of fish on jigs, mostly Crappie and mostly at other lakes, and catch an awful lot of sunfish -- mostly Bluegill -- plus Trout, of course, on flies. The use of crawfish scent is interesting. I have caught a number of large Bluegills at Perris which had Crawfish in their stomachs. I have never seen that anywhere else. Those fish even had pinkish meat from the Crawfish they were eating and tasted even better than other Bluegills, I swear, somewhat like the way pink-meated Trout taste better than white-meated Trout.

[CALFISHER4EVR]

You caught Redears on crankbaits? That is cool.

When the fish get more active in the shallows, I try to catch fish on artificials as much as I can. I catch lots of fish on jigs, mostly Crappie and mostly at other lakes, and catch an awful lot of sunfish -- mostly Bluegill -- plus Trout, of course, on flies. The use of crawfish scent is interesting. I have caught a number of large Bluegills at Perris which had Crawfish in their stomachs. I have never seen that anywhere else. Those fish even had pinkish meat from the Crawfish they were eating and tasted even better than other Bluegills, I swear, somewhat like the way pink-meated Trout taste better than white-meated Trout.


I have never thrown a fly at Perris for Bluegill. I would try it for sure. If you ever want some company using a fly rod on shore or float tube shoot me a pm.

[Natural Lefty]

Calfish4evr, I don't have a boat or float tube, so I am pretty much shore and dock bound. However, if I am going, I can try to tell you when and where. I think they will start hitting flies soon. There were already some midges flying around last time. I usually use a bobber and fly setup, with a stop and go retrieve for sunfish, but sometimes use a flyrod if the fish are close and there is not too much brush around. I also have several other techniques for using flies -- sinking bobber, split shot setup, or sinking bead-headed flies from docks. Sometimes, they only hit flies at dusk, but when the flyfishing is really good, they hit flies all day long, depending on the technique you use.