gavin310
06-01-2010, 11:31 AM
Decided a few days before Memorial Day to camp at Lake Hemet for the holiday weekend. I called up to reserve two spots and they only had spots right next to the highway. Oh well, that's what happens when you wait til the last minute on a holiday weekend. After I hung up the phone, the girl called me back 2 minutes later and said someone just canceled their two waterfront sites. Awww yeah!! My friend's girlfriend had to work until 4:30pm on Friday so were going to leave around 5:30-6, so I was thinking the traffic was going to be insane. What's strange is the worst traffic we encountered was the traffic waiting to get into the campground. They were processing about 2 cars every 5 minutes. It was crazy. Anyway, took about an hour and a half to get into the campground and we get to our two reserved spots to find only 1 spot. We got the ranger to help us figure out what was going on, and apparently the 2nd spot we reserved doesn't even exist. They apologized and removed the "ghost" spot from their records. We said we'd cram everyone into the 1 spot, and they said they'd give it to us for the price of 1 car for each night (normally you pay the full price of a camp spot for each car you have per night). So that was cool, we saved about $100.
Oh yeah, this is a fishing report. LOL. Here ya go.
We were camping with lots of friends and only one other person fished, but for some reason he decided not to fish almost the entire trip, so it was just me and I kept it pretty close to the camp spot (we were in spot 437, yellow area on the map).
First off though I want to say, it looked like the lake was filled with trout because you could see fish jumping EVERYWHERE, but it turned out the lake is infested with carp. People were netting them from shore. The ranger said if you catch a carp to please kill it. I'm going to find out if they allow bow fishing here for carp, cause it would be a blast. You could just stand on shore and shoot the **** out of some carp.
The first night I tried for cats with some shrimp for no luck. It was really cold at night, like 46, but warm in the day. Cats might need some more time before they'll be coming out at the higher elevations.
Next day I woke up at 5:45 thinking I'd make the sunrise but it was already bright and sunny outside. I walked out on a long dry sand bar and set up my poles and got bit a couple minutes later on an inflated crawler with white power egg. Little guy, about 12", but all the trout were good fighters with nice full tails. About 15 minutes later I got another bite on the same rig, but this one was a little bigger. The smaller trout had white meat, the bigger one had pink meat. Also got a little pumpkinseed that I wish I would've kept, since later on I decided to catch a few to fillet.
Later on in the day the trout stopped biting. Nobody on my shore was catching anything. So I tied on a little piece of worm and fished on the bottom to catch some pumpkinseeds. Got about 4 smaller ones. Wish I could've gotten more. Couldn't find the bluegill which I heard are in there.
So at the end of the day I had 2 trout and 4 panfish. Cleaned the trout and filleted the pumpkins. The pink meat trout were awesome, even had a salmony taste. The panfish were the best, mainly because the fillets are so thin they soak up any seasoning all through the meat. We used butter, garlic salt and lemon pepper for seasoning.
Next day I set my iPhone alarm for 4:30am. I opened my eyes the next morning and it was 6:50am. WTF?! Looked at my phone and the alarm had gone off, but my ringer had gotten turned all the way down somehow. Damn. Anyway, got set up down from my site but there were lots of people fishing. Got a spot in between some beached boats and a little while later the people next to me reeled in a nice one on green powerbait. I stuck with my worms, but when the pulled in another one soon after I switched both my poles to green powerbait. About 30 minutes later I finally got my first trout. Then an hour later I got another. While I was waiting, there were people about 30 yards to my right who were catching fish all day on a powerbait/nightcrawler combo, but there wasn't much space near them and I'm not one of those guys who will weasel in right by you and cast over your line. So no action for a few hours. Couldn't even find the panfish. Later on in the day a spot opened up near the fish killers so I took it. After that I was catching them easy, just on green powerbait. (Just goes to show, if you see someone killing it right next to you, it may not be their bait, they're just in the sweet spot.) There were some kids who were watching me fish and they started asking some questions. They said there were going to get their pole and come down and fish. Little while later they came back and were throwing a thomas buoyant. They got snagged up and one was saying how his dad was going to be so mad at him. I worked at a while and got it free. About 10 minutes later one of them comes back and says his friend got snagged again. Right then I see my pole twitching, so I say to him 'want to reel in a fish'? He says yeah! so I set the hook and hand him the pole. He had fun reeling in the little trout. So after that was landed I went over and got his lure unstuck and switched out his rig to weights and powerbait. I ended up with 3 trout at the new spot, so 5 total for the day. I could've caught more at the spot, but some of our friends had gone home and I didn't need any more to make a dinner for me and my 2 friends.
Then my friends girlfriend starts saying she wants. Whatever, I guess that's expected after 2 nights. So we headed home.
Overall, Lake Hemet is an awesome place to camp. They keep everything very well maintained, the camp spots are roomy, and everyone there was friendly and neighborly. Although the lady in the entrance booth said two guys got into a huge fistfight while waiting in line. Guess I can't really blame them, that slow *** line really tested your patience.
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Oh yeah, this is a fishing report. LOL. Here ya go.
We were camping with lots of friends and only one other person fished, but for some reason he decided not to fish almost the entire trip, so it was just me and I kept it pretty close to the camp spot (we were in spot 437, yellow area on the map).
First off though I want to say, it looked like the lake was filled with trout because you could see fish jumping EVERYWHERE, but it turned out the lake is infested with carp. People were netting them from shore. The ranger said if you catch a carp to please kill it. I'm going to find out if they allow bow fishing here for carp, cause it would be a blast. You could just stand on shore and shoot the **** out of some carp.
The first night I tried for cats with some shrimp for no luck. It was really cold at night, like 46, but warm in the day. Cats might need some more time before they'll be coming out at the higher elevations.
Next day I woke up at 5:45 thinking I'd make the sunrise but it was already bright and sunny outside. I walked out on a long dry sand bar and set up my poles and got bit a couple minutes later on an inflated crawler with white power egg. Little guy, about 12", but all the trout were good fighters with nice full tails. About 15 minutes later I got another bite on the same rig, but this one was a little bigger. The smaller trout had white meat, the bigger one had pink meat. Also got a little pumpkinseed that I wish I would've kept, since later on I decided to catch a few to fillet.
Later on in the day the trout stopped biting. Nobody on my shore was catching anything. So I tied on a little piece of worm and fished on the bottom to catch some pumpkinseeds. Got about 4 smaller ones. Wish I could've gotten more. Couldn't find the bluegill which I heard are in there.
So at the end of the day I had 2 trout and 4 panfish. Cleaned the trout and filleted the pumpkins. The pink meat trout were awesome, even had a salmony taste. The panfish were the best, mainly because the fillets are so thin they soak up any seasoning all through the meat. We used butter, garlic salt and lemon pepper for seasoning.
Next day I set my iPhone alarm for 4:30am. I opened my eyes the next morning and it was 6:50am. WTF?! Looked at my phone and the alarm had gone off, but my ringer had gotten turned all the way down somehow. Damn. Anyway, got set up down from my site but there were lots of people fishing. Got a spot in between some beached boats and a little while later the people next to me reeled in a nice one on green powerbait. I stuck with my worms, but when the pulled in another one soon after I switched both my poles to green powerbait. About 30 minutes later I finally got my first trout. Then an hour later I got another. While I was waiting, there were people about 30 yards to my right who were catching fish all day on a powerbait/nightcrawler combo, but there wasn't much space near them and I'm not one of those guys who will weasel in right by you and cast over your line. So no action for a few hours. Couldn't even find the panfish. Later on in the day a spot opened up near the fish killers so I took it. After that I was catching them easy, just on green powerbait. (Just goes to show, if you see someone killing it right next to you, it may not be their bait, they're just in the sweet spot.) There were some kids who were watching me fish and they started asking some questions. They said there were going to get their pole and come down and fish. Little while later they came back and were throwing a thomas buoyant. They got snagged up and one was saying how his dad was going to be so mad at him. I worked at a while and got it free. About 10 minutes later one of them comes back and says his friend got snagged again. Right then I see my pole twitching, so I say to him 'want to reel in a fish'? He says yeah! so I set the hook and hand him the pole. He had fun reeling in the little trout. So after that was landed I went over and got his lure unstuck and switched out his rig to weights and powerbait. I ended up with 3 trout at the new spot, so 5 total for the day. I could've caught more at the spot, but some of our friends had gone home and I didn't need any more to make a dinner for me and my 2 friends.
Then my friends girlfriend starts saying she wants. Whatever, I guess that's expected after 2 nights. So we headed home.
Overall, Lake Hemet is an awesome place to camp. They keep everything very well maintained, the camp spots are roomy, and everyone there was friendly and neighborly. Although the lady in the entrance booth said two guys got into a huge fistfight while waiting in line. Guess I can't really blame them, that slow *** line really tested your patience.
23034230332303223035