Lake Mission Viejo trophy redear 10/16, 10/17

[Geraldlim]

After being away from fishing for nearly 2 decades, I attended a conference in Canada last month where I did some flyfishing which awakened the fishing bug. Then last week a buddy and his family visited and stayed at my condo on Lake Mission Viejo and his son wanted to fish. So I spent the weekend fishing for panfish and it was FUN! We found heavy concentrations of bluegill and redear in Market Cove and found willing takers on nightcrawler pieces flylined on 2 lb line. I even lost a BIG 1 lb+ sunfish in the weeds on the bottom (confirmed by my buddy with a snorkel after it hung up in the weeds. He tried to free it up but busted the line instead). Now I am well and truly hooked!

So I found FNN and boned up on fishing techniques. This last weekend I went back to the lake to try my luck again. I started at the condo fishing dock Saturday evening, flylining a piece of nightcrawler on 2 lb line near the shore and slowly crawling it back on the bottom. 30 minutes into this I got a heavy bite, set the hook and the line screamed out in long runs of 3-5 seconds! A few minutes of this later I netted my 1st trophy redear sunfish - 1lb 5oz on the lake scales!

I caught 1 more little sunfish and called it a night a little past midnight.

[troutdog]

That lake kicks out some fat panfish, nice going! Welcome to FNN, looking forward to more of your reports.


TD

[GdHkSet1]

Nice report, and welcome back to fishing and FNN! You got something going good now ...friends, family and fishing!

[Geraldlim]

The next morning, Sunday, I rented a boat at 6am. It was gray and drizzly and wet. I motored over to the area near the condo fishing dock again to try my luck. No luck, so I moved to Market Cove where we had found large numbers of panfish the week before.

This time there were no where near the numbers of panfish I had found just last week. Even the several large bass that had shadowed the boat all day last weekend were absent. I worked around the entire cove shoreline, using both 2lb flyined nightcrawler as well as a dropshot rig on 4lb with crickets and worms. I got a few small fish which I released until I finally got a nice 9oz bluegill on the dropshot rig which I kept.

I moved out to the point off the market and started working the dropshot rig with pieces of nightcrawler as bait. I fished and moved progressively deeper until I was halfway between the point and the white buoy toward the East Beach when I got bit on the bottom in about 40 feet of water. It was a nice 9oz redear. I dropped the anchor and worked the bite for 2 more identical sized redear before the bite fizzled. BTW they came up from such depth their eyes were popping out like cowcod!

The total damage for the morning was 1 bluegill and 3 redear for a total of 2 and a quarter lbs of sunfish.

In a 12 hour period over the 2 days I caught 5 sunfish totalling 3 lbs 9 oz. I am stoked!

[Geraldlim]

Thanks for the welcome guys!

[Geraldlim]

Now if I can only figure out how to interest all the big bass I am seeing. I can't even get the to sniff at any of the lures I am tossing out (sigh). But then again I know squat about bass.

[Geraldlim]

Oops - I had intended to post this thread in "All other freshwater reports" section. Can a moderator move this thread please? Thanks!

[Nessie Hunter]

Good Read GeraldLim.. :-)

Bigbass777 (Dave) also lives there and fishes often.
The upcoming trout season should just about give you a meltdown.
The trout season is Awesome there....
Dave also has a problem with the LMB all they do is attack the hooked smaller fish & Trout, wont touch anything else???
Welcome aboard!!!!

[Hometown]

thanks for the report and pics wecome to the sight theres alot of cool peps on here.