Fished the City Dump today! (Irvine Lake)

Let me start off with the facts and then the fish report and end with the Conspiracy theory! Lol

The facts are this and their not going to change this year! (wishing thinking isn't going to work either) They have signed a 1 year lease and what the rules are now are set "IN STONE" for this year! So don't be wishing for Night fishing, Float tubing and most importantly boating this year to return! I wouldn't even hope for more then the 3 day a week being open to change this year either. So I got that out of the way!

Fish report!

I knew opening day would produce some good catch's for some people. The problem is where do you start with no information given! So I opted to scout the first day and fish the second day in a productive spot! I found a good spot the first day, so we were off to the races the 2nd day right when they open. We in our spot caught 2 catfish, 1 2 year old catfish that was born there and 1 8 lbs Channel catfish. The people next to us, caught 2 2 yr old catfish and 1 15 pound channel catfish. So our area was ok to fish for catfish there! I didn't hear or see any other catfish caught around us. I did see some Bass caught around us too, so my 3 miles of hiking yesterday did pay off! Lol Overall today it was pretty tough fishing for most people! This is not the Irvine Lake of old and I doubt it will change much this year! If you want a boat load of fish to take home, Irvine Lake is not the place for you!

Conspiracy theory!

Did they set up Irvine Lake to Fail on purpose!

It is not a user friendly lake! You have to park and walk a fair distance to get to fish! (family's and causal fishermen hate this already)

They basically set it up where you can't take any fish home. The Bass are C&R only and you have to release any catfish over 24 inches. (which most of the eating size are) No trout yet (let's see how that goes?) and the Crappie never bit near shore in the past. That only leaves Bluegill to take home and trust me people were bagging them up! (so they won't last long)

They only allow you to fish with 1 pole. It's hard enough to catch any fish from shore to start with and now they tie 1 hand behind your back so you can't use it!

They the workers are in your face all day! They don't hand out a rules sheet when you drive in, but they walk the shoreline all day to make sure you aren't breaking any rules!

Their patrol boat drives by every 30 minutes or less, right over your lines and scares all the fish away! I literally could hit this guy with a cast every time he drives by. (that's how close he is!

Someone else said, they gave the lease to an Rock promoter who is not a fishermen! So he is either screwing things up on purpose, so after 1 year he can say Irvine Lake was a failure to fishermen, but I've got something else in mind for the place. Or it was so grossly mis managed the powers can say, "we tried" but running a successful lake is hard to do!

It looks like it's going to turn into a hard core lake for the serious fishermen and everyone else can go suck lemons! I like it, but I'm a fish O'haulic!

Was the lake management open up to public auction or was this some nefarious nonsense like most of the **** around here. Thought OC parks was taking it over now we hear the people who do concerts at Newport Dunes and Oak Canyon have it? This place gonna turn into a Juggalo lake full of tattood rockabilly dorks like Oak Canyon park? Or another $250 a night "campground" like Newport Dunes?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by etucker1959

It is not a user friendly lake! You have to park and walk a fair distance to get to fish! (family's and causal fishermen hate this already)

---

So it is confirmed that you are not allowed to drive your vehicle along the shore. You have to hike to and from your fishing spot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hotramen

So it is confirmed that you are not allowed to drive your vehicle along the shore. You have to hike to and from your fishing spot.

---

You sure do have to do a fair amount of walking! Not friendly for anyone with any kind of walking disabilities! I kinda admit, walking back in the heat lugging all kinds of crap was a little tiring! Lol Think about it for a minute, how much crap you bring with you? 1. 2 or 3 poles 2. Tackle box 3. Chair on your back 4. Ice chest 5. If your smart some kind of umbrella to keep the sun off you. It's too far to make more then 1 trip, so it's kinda of an daunting task! Plus that 1 pole crap! It's going to be hard enough to catch anything and now they limit you to 1 pole!

Their setting it up to Fail!

I accidentally misposted this in the SARL section but it looks like I'm clairvoyant…..

"In the short term, Irvine will be open Fridays through Sundays from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., with hopes that enough early use and demand for the gem of an Orange County resource will be high enough to justify further expansion of public use in the future beyond the already agreed upon one-year deal between the county and Serrano and Irvine Ranch water districts."


This smells really strange.

Gary James Entertainment, a concert promoter who has the exclusive right to sponsor large events on the property and has no prior experience in recreational fishing , has been given responsibility for bringing back the recreational fishing? He seems to have the backing of OC Supervisor Wagner, but why are there no fishing folks involved? Even DFW is excluded because it will be managed as "private aquaculture" without the requirement for fishing licenses.

Does anyone really think that long term weekend fishing is compatible with the kind of concerts, corporate picnics and special events that GJE promotes? If I was a concert promoter who wanted to stage events there on weekends, I would basically open the lake to fishing with very little forethought or organization and hope that a logistical catastrophe caused by lack of planning is followed by general disillusionment so those pesky fishing folks can be removed as "an experiment gone wrong" to clear the weekends for "Orange Coachella." Doing laps on Silverado Canyon waiting for the gates to open seems like a good first step to chaos.

I really hope I'm wrong, but if the result of this disorganized opening is a "Fish-ageddon" at Irvine this weekend, it may really just be a premeditated step to "landing" Taylor Swift....

Last edited by Old Hooker; 08-13-2019 at 03:40 PM.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Old Hooker

I accidentally misposted this in the SARL section but it looks like I'm clairvoyant…..

"In the short term, Irvine will be open Fridays through Sundays from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., with hopes that enough early use and demand for the gem of an Orange County resource will be high enough to justify further expansion of public use in the future beyond the already agreed upon one-year deal between the county and Serrano and Irvine Ranch water districts."


This smells really strange.

Gary James Entertainment, a concert promoter who has the exclusive right to sponsor large events on the property and has no prior experience in recreational fishing , has been given responsibility for bringing back the recreational fishing? He seems to have the backing of OC Supervisor Wagner, but why are there no fishing folks involved? Even DFW is excluded because it will be managed as "private aquaculture" without the requirement for fishing licenses.

Does anyone really think that long term weekend fishing is compatible with the kind of concerts, corporate picnics and special events that GJE promotes? If I was a concert promoter who wanted to stage events there on weekends, I would basically open the lake to fishing with very little forethought or organization and hope that a logistical catastrophe caused by lack of planning is followed by general disillusionment so those pesky fishing folks can be removed as "an experiment gone wrong" to clear the weekends for "Orange Coachella." Doing laps on Silverado Canyon waiting for the gates to open seems like a good first step to chaos.

I really hope I'm wrong, but if the result of this disorganized opening is a "Fish-ageddon" at Irvine this weekend, it may really just be a premeditated step to "landing" Taylor Swift....

Last edited by Old Hooker; 08-13-2019 at 03:40 PM.

---

I was there both day's this weekend, so I'm talking with experience. It all might just be a coincidence, but some of their policies could a sneaky way to make it Fail! (I already talked about some of them, so I don't need to rehash them!) One thing I'm sure of, it will never resemble the Irvine Lake of old!

HEE HAW! SQUEAL LIKE A PIG! It will be a homeless camp in no time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mister.Twister

HEE HAW! SQUEAL LIKE A PIG! It will be a homeless camp in no time.

---

I guarantee it won't turn into a homeless camp! The amount of enforcement that went on was almost to the point of Harassment! So if they have evil plans for the place (which means no fishermen) to do other things. Letting a homeless camp survive would never happen. They had 5 kinds of enforcement going on all at the same time. 1. County Sheriff 2. Park Rangers 3. County employees who were not Park Rangers 4. Lake employees 5. The promoters people! How do I know who they were? I saw them get out of trucks marked Bla Bla business! I think he was one of the clowns driving the boat and scaring all our fish away! (at least the first guy was for sure) He had a ZZ Top beard (how can you miss that!) and I saw him in the morning getting out of one of the promoters trucks.

Don't get me wrong I love the place!

I can see the 2 types of fishermen who are going to take advantage of the place. Skinny young dudes who are Bass fishermen! Plus hard core dudes like me, who will fish the place 4 times a month and catch 4 #8-10 pound catfish and go Wa Who, to catching some big ones. I've caught thousands of stocker catfish, but not many were over #5 pounds! So I'm going to love the place! Lol

The big family thing where they all go there to meet up, after trout season they won't be showing up! (how do I know that?) I went to Lake Wohlford 2 weeks ago and they rented just 3 boats and had 5 guy's fish on shore. That lake is 5 times easier to fish then Irvine! So that's how I drew my conclusion! If people don't catch fish and you had to put in a lot of effort, they won't come back!

Is the wooden fence line
Exposed?? Or under water?
I can shoot you a disposable
Camera for your next outing.



Cm

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by crappiemike

Is the wooden fence line
Exposed?? Or under water?
I can shoot you a disposable
Camera for your next outing.



Cm

---

It's out of the water pretty good at Trout Island! A lot of very nice Bluegill were caught around there, but I didn't see any Crappies on any stringers! But I was only there for a few minutes.

Not sure why families would show up for trout season, they are not going to stock the lake.

Is trout island the hill of the point? Most of that bay from the parking out that way is mostly dry mud flat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Midwest

Not sure why families would show up for trout season, they are not going to stock the lake.

Is trout island the hill of the point? Most of that bay from the parking out that way is mostly dry mud flat.

---

Trout Island is indeed the point on the right as you see it from the parking lot. As for stocking trout, I heard the ZZ top dude talking on the phone (he was that close in the boat, as he was scaring all the fish away) they have a hypothetical stocking budget of $250,000, if they grossed a million dollars in revenue. (that's all hearsay, so don't take that to the bank!) But keep this in mind, the old group stocked what? 4-5,000 pounds of trout a week. So that's up to 20,000 pounds a month on the high end. By doing that, they had good trout fishing on the bank. If they only stock say 2- 3,000 pounds a month. It will only be good for several days where they stocked it and after that, it just swims away! If you don't believe that, have you been to LNL lately? That is exactly what happens and it's tiny in comparison! I do think they will stock trout, but it's not going to be like the old day's would be my guess!

I hope they do stock, but having 'fished' LNL I don't have high hopes. Sadly most of SoCal seems to degenerate into pay to fish like SARL or chase the el cheapo stocking rate and pay the public park fees to put a line in the water.

Most of what I've read regarding getting it reopened doesn't paint a rosy picture.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Midwest

I hope they do stock, but having 'fished' LNL I don't have high hopes. Sadly most of SoCal seems to degenerate into pay to fish like SARL or chase the el cheapo stocking rate and pay the public park fees to put a line in the water.

Most of what I've read regarding getting it reopened doesn't paint a rosy picture.

---

Feels like I should give out some positive notes here.

The parking situation is well organized. They will let people in around 6am and let you park inside so there's no need to wait on the road. At 7am, then they will open the gate of the foot path for people to start fishing. Was told this will be the normal operation and not just reopening day thing.

It is a bit of a walk between the parking lot and the water, especially in the hot sun. But we did saw a worker got their vehicle stuck in the sand and had to call for another vehicle to help. So in a way, there is good reason for not allowing cars park right up to the shore. One can argue that they can setup a designated parking area closer to the water, but it's still dirt road so it is possible they simply choose not to deal with the road trouble/maintenance . They do have some sort of a golf cart running around transporting people. I'm not sure how that is arranged. For the elderly or those that have trouble walking, they'll likely to provide the transport service.

There were a lot of workers there. Pretty sure the extra men power are there to make sure the reopening day runs smoothly. The workers/rangers do come around and inform people of the rules. I saw no citation or ticket given. For those with more than 1 pole in the water were simply told to put the extra one away.

1 pole only does suck. But for the price of no license and zero fishing fee, it's hard to complain. No fee which also means there's no revenue to restock fish, so they needed the catch and release rule.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Egster

Feels like I should give out some positive notes here.

The parking situation is well organized. They will let people in around 6am and let you park inside so there's no need to wait on the road. At 7am, then they will open the gate of the foot path for people to start fishing. Was told this will be the normal operation and not just reopening day thing.

It is a bit of a walk between the parking lot and the water, especially in the hot sun. But we did saw a worker got their vehicle stuck in the sand and had to call for another vehicle to help. So in a way, there is good reason for not allowing cars park right up to the shore. One can argue that they can setup a designated parking area closer to the water, but it's still dirt road so it is possible they simply choose not to deal with the road trouble/maintenance . They do have some sort of a golf cart running around transporting people. I'm not sure how that is arranged. For the elderly or those that have trouble walking, they'll likely to provide the transport service.

There were a lot of workers there. Pretty sure the extra men power are there to make sure the reopening day runs smoothly. The workers/rangers do come around and inform people of the rules. I saw no citation or ticket given. For those with more than 1 pole in the water were simply told to put the extra one away.

1 pole only does suck. But for the price of no license and zero fishing fee, it's hard to complain. No fee which also means there's no revenue to restock fish, so they needed the catch and release rule.

---

People might get a laugh out of this! Egster is my fishing partner, we fished Irvine lake together this past weekend. So if I came off a little harsh about the place (it's just an opinion) the guy who sat next to me in the car ride over there, could see things a little differently then me! Lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Midwest

I hope they do stock, but having 'fished' LNL I don't have high hopes. Sadly most of SoCal seems to degenerate into pay to fish like SARL or chase the el cheapo stocking rate and pay the public park fees to put a line in the water.

Most of what I've read regarding getting it reopened doesn't paint a rosy picture.

---

It's a bit of a drive! (Escondido) But Lake Wohlford is the "Best Trout Lake" in a boat in all of Southern CA. $7 for an permit and $35 for a boat. You can't beat it with stick! (read my reports to confirm that)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by crappiemike

Is the wooden fence line
Exposed?? Or under water?
I can shoot you a disposable
Camera for your next outing.



Cm

---

I was there on opening day on the east shore. I believe you can see the fence line in this pic Attachment 52197

My only catch from opening day...caught it around 10:30 am using cut mackerel bought from the lake's tackle shop. Casted as far away from shore as I could to get away from all the people fishing on top of me. Fishing was good until about noon when it got quiet. It was definitely great to be back at Irvine Lake even with all the changes and restrictions

Attachment 52204 Attachment 52205 Attachment 52206