Irvine Regional Catfish Snobs

Finally decided to try my luck for catfish this year at regional parks. I've avoided OC Parks due to some fishermen just being jerks about a bunch of stuff. Immediately after arriving we set up and already a gentlemen next to us started berating us for "taking his spot" and yelling at us in front of my kids. He had already limited out but kept throwing one of his catfish out every time he caught a other one. We don't like to take fishermen's spots or cast over them but this guy claimed one large spot all to himself apparently. Anyways, after dealing with that asshat we caught and released two nice catfish. Most people were catching in the center of the lake and some took more than they're limit or just hogged spots after limiting out. I won't return to fish OC Parks for another long while again.

That's really sad to hear. But all the parks (LA included) have this problem. A lot of catfishermen think they can set up their array of poles 5 ft apart and take up a whole section.

At least you caught some! Really tough picking of city lakes without the yearly Kids' derby plants.

Thanks, we had fun and released our catfish to swim another day. Irvine Regional has plenty of fun activities for the kiddos so fishing became secondary lol.

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Originally Posted by georatm2011

Thanks, we had fun and released our catfish to swim another day. Irvine Regional has plenty of fun activities for the kiddos so fishing became secondary lol.

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I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience! I wouldn't give up on the Orange County parks, I would just come up with Evel plans to defeat thy fellow fishermen! (Austin Power movie reference) For a couple of examples. We've been fishing Irvine Lake (the big one) and found a honey hole of Trophy catfish! So we come up with plans to get that spot every time. (so far we are 4 for 4 in doing that) At the smaller Orange County parks, don't go the day of the stocking or the next. Go a few day's later and their is nobody there! Trust me, you can still catch plenty of catfish with superior bait and good locations!

Thanks Tucker, your always a class act. Hope to meet you up at the lake sometime though I'm sure we've met at some point. Since I always try to bring my kiddos it's though to always get those sweet spots but we'll work on it.

I was there on Friday as well and ended up catching my limit of 5 but I fished all day.

Were you the one that setup at the point near the bridge where the upper lake transitions to the lower lake? I saw people arguing there.

Yes, I knew a couple of the guys fishing in that area. When I greeted them a person I didn't know started telling us to get lost and to leave the spot. Dude was already on his 5th fish so I asked him to be more mindful that other people are have the right to fish as well. We didn't even fish in his spot we were next to him not throwing it over this line like others were. Anyhow still caught and release two nice cats on about an hour.