Castaic Lake Smallmouth Bass Questions...

Hi Everyone- Any info on these questions would be awesome:

1) When/How did Castaic ever start having Smallmouth??

2) Any specific places in the lake where you would target them? Or would just be by chance that you are fishing for Largemouth, that you end up catching these Smallies??

3) Finally, I fish a lake in Northern Calif. where I do really well on Smallies, and the bait of choice is/are Crickets. How would this do at Castaic? Would they just catch bluegill/crappie?? Would the crickets work for the Smallies that are in Castaic? Or would this be a case of crickets working up north just because of that specific lake and its forage??


Thanks!!!!

not sure how long they been in there or how. but i think castaic used to have walleye too. all the smallmouth ive caught ive been fishing from banks going for largies. crickets are probably working good because most people are out practicing for tournaments ect so they dont use any live baits. so the lake probably doesnt get a ton of cricket pressure. ive caught bluegill on fake looking plastic insects types never a largemouth or smallie on one but i was on the bluegills that day anyways. i never tried live crickets there. i mainly stick to drop shotting fake worms. the smallmouth ive gotten are small, though i have seen people catch 3-4lbers.

Looking back at my fish log for castaic, I've caught most of the smalls on points leading into very deep water. Last one I caught was out of a point that in 20 feet dropped 50ft. They seem to like hanging close to deep water, but has to be a Rocky point leading into flats. You can find a few points like these right by the back dam. I don't use live bait so can't chime in on the cricket. I've caught them on robos, kastmasters, and rapala.
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Thanks for the info guys. As far as using kastmasters, would that be "jigging"? Yes, I use nothing but artificials down here. The lakes up north I just got on to crickets and they work great. I'm guessing it does have something to do with those lakes/weather/natural bait in those lakes/ and its structure types.

From what I understand the smallies were planted by bass fisherman. They were caught at Pyramid and released at Castaic. I've never used crickets but have had luck with cranks and plastic.

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Originally Posted by PitchFish

Thanks for the info guys. As far as using kastmasters, would that be "jigging"? Yes, I use nothing but artificials down here. The lakes up north I just got on to crickets and they work great. I'm guessing it does have something to do with those lakes/weather/natural bait in those lakes/ and its structure types.

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Vertical jigging with a feathered kastmasters is the ticket. Very finicky, so using light flouro is best IMO.