Some Trout Fishing and Prospecting...At Prado

[sevenout]

Decided to spend a couple of hours trout fishing at Prado since they had a monster stock after the refill. Well, only ended up with several short strikes and one that stayed buttoned on for about 45 seconds before spewing the hook. Did feel like a nice one though. Changed formats at 10:00 and decided to walk some of the lake with my bass setup, hoping (praying) that some bass did survive the 90% drain. I did see a couple of carp jumping and a recent report in WON that some bass were caught. So I had a sliver of optimism that all was not lost.

Well, reality hit me square in the face! Worked the area from the large dam to the nearest small dam...absolutely nothing. Water was relatively clear, no bass cruising, no strikes, and no juveniles escorting my jerk bait. Talked to three gents fishing for the same species on a boat and they reported a similar scenario.

Prado is, for the most part, sterile, but for the stockers and the fish you can really never get rid of...Carp. I just got to hope that the State or County puts in a mixture of fish to make this lake the great ecosystem it once was...full of Shad, Bass, Bluegill and Crappie.

[parkermann2]

They said they were planning on putting some bass in there in the next few months. I wish they would have already done it so they could possibly spawn this year. Let's just hope they actually do stock them. How is the water clarity now that it's full again?

[sevenout]

Even after the rains, I'm guessing about 4 to 5 feet clarity.

[parkermann2]

That's good to hear. The past few years it has been less than one foot visibility

[cowboys94]

I went to prado trout derby fishing was horrible only 3 fish were caught a 3.3lb 3.4 and a 1.5 one of thoes fish were scooped up by a net technically not really caught by hook. A lot of pissed off people, what ended up happening was they got everyone's info down to either refund them or put towards next derby on April 2. No bites nothing my first time a prado it wasn't the best

[Webfoot]

I know it's just a city park lake but it "had' and established fish population. There are or were many catfish well over 10lbs in there and plenty of larger Bass as well. Poor planning on Prado's part for not taking this into consideration before dumping the lake out. Help me understand what was accomplished by doing this.

[shiromaguro88]

I went on Sunday the day after the derby. When I heard there was only three trout caught for the derby I thought someone was just pulling my leg. I fished from opening until 12, not a single bite. It was my first time so I walked the whole lake talking to people. Not one person had a trout except for one guy I helped net a 12 lb carp. I ended up heading to Santa Ana river lake for the afternoon and only managed to get two. Lot of work for two fish. Well that's fishing.