Lost a 50 pounder at Irvine Lake!
Irvine Lake has been open now for 2 weeks, so I thought I would give an Memorial Day report. (I'll do a separate follow up report for Friday May 29 fishing too!) To say I had a good 2 weeks of good fishing was an understatement! (I've been on a good role) It started in the Local Orange County parks fishing for catfish. I had a 10 period of off the hook catfishing. I then tried to parlay my success to Irvine Lake over the Memorial day weekend. Before I talk about my trips let me give an overall view of fishing at Irvine Lake.
The lake level has risen dramatically since they shut down 2 months! (it doesn't even look like the same lake) With that being said, "their has been some pretty good Bass catches." The opening week before Memorial day weekend they caught an 11 pound LMB on a night crawler. They caught a few trout that week too. On Friday of the Memorial day weekend a group of 3 young men were Bass fishing a 100 feet away from us. One of them hooked up a nice Bass on an Senko wacky rigged! (that Bass was all of 7 pounds) Next I ran into a gentlemen who was throwing a spinner bait on the East shore and he told me he landed several nice Bass that day. (So the Bass are biting to a certain degree)
We were after catfish and they planted 1,000 pounds of eating size catfish that week. By my detective work I reasoned where they put them in. I was correct but the problem was they didn't bite hardly at all! Only 6 of the freshly planted catfish were caught that weekend! However, where we were fishing several of the old Trophy size catfish were caught! I caught one of the smaller ones but the people who were fishing just to the left of us caught 3 8-10 pound catfish! (not bad at all) So I thought it would be worth while to give it one more shot on Saturday. So Saturday came and we set up in the same spot but fishing with Trophy catfish bait and not planter size bait.
To say it was a slow Saturday morning was an understatement! (not even a bite for 4 hours of fishing) The only highlight of the morning was to see one of the Big Sturgeons of the lake boil up right in front of us! About 11 o clock my line was barely going tight for 20 minutes on my reel. I was fishing open bail with a big piece of Mackerel but no line ever came off the spool. I eventual reeled it in to check the bait and low and behold their was something on it! This was a pretty heavy pole with Braided line and a heavy leader! I hooked a tank of a fish! I caught plenty of catfish this year to 15 pounds and this was huge in comparison! You could barely pump the pole and when he ran it was like a tuna! IT WAS A MONSTER OF A FISH!!!!! After a while it eventual broke the knot at the leader connection. As for seeing the fish it could have only been 1 of 3 kinds of fish. A carp, a catfish or a sturgeon. What ever it was it was Huge! My buddy's the carp guy's said it wasn't a Carp because it wouldn't have sat their for 20 minutes eating the bait. So that leaves a huge catfish or a sturgeon. I first thought catfish but my buddy's think it was the sturgeon for how light it bit the bait. Whatever it was it was probably over 50 pounds!
Well as a consolation prize we went back to my honey hole park lake and caught 22 catfish that evenings! So it wasn't a total loss that day after all! Lol
