LNL Freshwater Help!

[BiggetyBones]

Hey guys,

I'm a saltwater guy who mainly targets Calico / Sand bass. I fish the surf, rock hop, private boat, and party boat fish on the big pond. I've got the salty water nailed down, but have little experience on how to "effectively" fish the fresh stuff.

Groupon came out with a deal to fish at Laguna Niguel Lake, so my family and three other families bought it and are planning to fish LNL in a couple weeks. We plan on bringing the EZ Ups, portable tables, BBQ grill and plan on making a day of it. The kids are mainly 6-7 year old boys.

Not knowing the lake, I initially had visions of finding a nice grassy spot in which we could setup the tents and the kids could run wild in the grass. Yesterday, my kids and I did a recon trip to LNL and realized there are no such grassy spots to fish from, but only hard packed dirt areas. We walked around the whole lake and it appears the best place to setup shop is on the tackle shop side, about mid lake in a flat, open, hard-packed dirt area that had a couple picnic tables and bbq grills. I know the other side of the lake has a grassy area, however, there is no real open space in which the kids could fish from. This spot has open space where the kids could fish and we could watch them. The other side of the lake has reeds lining the water leaving little to no place to fish.

We stopped off at the tackle shop to gain some intel. What I gathered is that fishing right now is slow since the weather has warmed up and they stopped stocking trout. Apparently, there are a few bass being caught. The kid in the shop suggested our best bet might be to target Crappie.

Since I'm not familiar with the freshwater scene, can anybody provide some guidance on how we should rig up the kids for Crappie?? Considering they are 6-7 year olds, I'm thinking we could possibly use night crawlers and play the bait and wait game. Is this our best bet? If not, what else should we use? How should we rig them up? If we do use nightcrawlers, how should we fish them? Bobber, Texas Rig? What size hook, what size weight? Split shot, sliding sinker? Night crawlers, mealworms, both?

Hopefully we can get a few kids on hooked on fishing.

Any suggestions welcomed and much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[QB7940]

That lake has a lot of small stunted crappie. Smaller than your hand. Crappie fishing requires a lot of jigging and moving around to find fish. Like fishing for surf perch i guess. I strongly disagree you should target them because of the kids. Kids that age are better off targeting bluegill with waxworms and a bobber. Or even bait and wait catfish with some shrimp or marshmallows. For the bluegill, an ultralite spinning reel with 2lb test a real small hook, bobber, and wax worm. If it were during the spawn, I'd recommend the crappie. Anyways you can probably throw a small 1.5inch tube on a 1/32 ounce jig and catch a couple crappie if you want.

[BiggetyBones]

That lake has a lot of small stunted crappie. Smaller than your hand. Crappie fishing requires a lot of jigging and moving around to find fish. Like fishing for surf perch i guess. I strongly disagree you should target them because of the kids. Kids that age are better off targeting bluegill with waxworms and a bobber. Or even bait and wait catfish with some shrimp or marshmallows. For the bluegill, an ultralite spinning reel with 2lb test a real small hook, bobber, and wax worm. If it were during the spawn, I'd recommend the crappie. Anyways you can probably throw a small 1.5inch tube on a 1/32 ounce jig and catch a couple crappie if you want.

QB,

Thank you for the surf perch analogy, that's more my comfort zone as I get it. =) Got to pound the sand until till you find'em. Find the rips, holes, trenches, sandbars (structure) and you'll find the surf fish. Got it! If that's the case, then maybe the Crappie should not be our target as I want to keep an eye on the young ones. Was hoping to fish directly in front of wherever we setup camp so the kiddies are in sight.

Here's my dilemma. The other families that are going are more than likely going to be renting rods from the tackle shop there. When I stopped in there, I saw the rental rods and they appear to have 6lb + test on them. Will that work for the bluegill? The setups didn't appear to be of the ultra light kind.

I asked the kid in the tackle shop if we could catch catfish from shore and he said right now they are deep, so you would need a boat.

I don't really care what we catch, I would just love to get the kids on a few fish. Thank you for your insight / suggestions!

Tight Lines!

[fly addict]

If the passes you’ve purchased for LNL are good until the next trout season I would save them until then. Kids that age get bored real fast if they aren’t catching something and chances are real good you won’t at LNL this time of year. The park around the lake does have a few nice areas with BBQs and cabanas.