Full Limits of Catfish for the whole lake at Guasti!!
I took my friend Phil a couple of weeks ago to Guasti and we did pretty good. (at least one of us did that day) But I at least had plenty of bites. I said I was going to go back to the drawing board and in true coyote fashion (Road Runner reference) I came up with a new plan. My bread & butter rig has always been the slip bobber with a Carolina bottom rig as my back up plan. I also had a secret weapon, I'll just call this rig, "the ancient Chinese secret."
The first trip we did a couple of weeks ago was so encouraging we wanted to go back for the last catfish stocking of the Season. We assumed it would be the Labor Day weekend. (Boy how wrong we were!!) They skipped the Labor Day weekend and made the final catfish plant Thursday Sept 7. We did learn they reconsidered fishing on Thursday the day they stocked the fish. I guess their logic was the truck didn't get there till 1:00 pm and they closed at 5:00 pm, so how much damage could people do in that short period of time. The answer to that was plenty!!!! Everyone who showed up and fished the small lake caught something and the vast majority of the people I saw caught their limit of Catfish. Nice ones too!! Nothing under 2 pounds and most were 3-4 pounders. Most people were fishing with Shrimp and a Marshmallow on a Carolina rig and did just great!!! Me and Phil started off with a slip bobber with Shrimp or Mealworms as bait. We caught a few but the other people who were fishing bottom rigs were kicking butt!!
It was then I tried the ancient Chinese secret rig and started catching fish. I ended up catching 6 Catfish on the ancient Chinese secret rig. Phil stuck to a slip boober with Shrimp and caught 7 Catfish. I caught 2 other fish on the Slip bobber rig for a total of 15 Catfish for the 2 of us. (we C&R all of them) Not bad considering two things, the fish were all real nice 2-4 pounders with most of them were about 3 pounds and we only fished between 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Plus we missed a fair amounts of bites!! So to say the least we had a lot of action in a short period of time. Not just for us but everyone else who showed up that day!!
What was that ancient Chinese secret??? Power Bait!!!! Not just any Power Bait but Gulp Chunky Cheese with Garlic dipped in Garlic. The cool part about that rig was the kind of pole you could use and how you set the hook. I had a 7 1/2 foot noodle pole and the fish set the hook themselves in the rod holder. So just pick up the pole and enjoy the fight!!! That's it for the year on Catfish stocking at Guast. No one gave any reports on the San Bernadino lakes this year for the Catfish season. So it kinda flew under the Radar!! Next year I'll be locked and loaded to fish it!!!!
