Castaic Lagoon 11/29 - Fishing with Butch!

[Fire Ball]

I decided to hit the lagoon this morning with my friend swimbait101 and another friend. Ffejrobins30 showed up too about 10 minutes after we got there. I started fishing for a little while, when Butch Brown came over and asked if me and swimbait101 wanted to fish with him for a little while. Butch said he has seen my posts and wants me to catch some bigger fish and he also knew swimbait101 previously. So we hopped in his boat and hit a spot loaded with bass. Butch is an awesome guy and thanks to him, I caught a few personal best bass today!! Me and swimbait101 caught about 15 bass each in about 1 or 2 hours! Thanks Butch, it was really awesome! When I got back on shore, I didn't manage to catch any more fish, neither did swimbait101, but my other friend caught a 13" bass. Fishing from shore was tough today. I don't think Ffejrobins30 managed to catch any fish either. Butch is an awesome guy!

ALL FISH RELEASED

My 2nd bass of the day.


My 3rd bass of the day.


My 4th bass of the day.


We put a bunch in the livewell for a picture. WE RELEASED THEM ALL AFTER!

[Bucket bay]

good job but why the srtinger?

[Fire Ball]

good job but why the srtinger?

So we could hold up a bunch of fish at once, lol. They were take off right after the picture, put back in the livewell, and then released a few minutes later.

[Ffejrobins30]

Yup, I came home about 4 o'clock with the skunk. Shore fishing was HORRIBLE today. Just have to go back out next weekend and see what we can do about that. This was my first ever skunk.

[Fire Ball]

Yup, I came home about 4 o'clock with the skunk. Shore fishing was HORRIBLE today. Just have to go back out next weekend and see what we can do about that. This was my first ever skunk.

That sucks. I went home at about 2:00, I think. Hopefully we can catch a lot from shore next week!

[Ffejrobins30]

Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?

[Wander]

Butch knows the hot spots that's for sure...and the right lures. I hope you can take what you've learned and build on it when you are shore fishing. Great pictures...I've seen Butch use that stringer to show off his many other catches. Makes me want to fishing real soon.

[gletemfeelsteelgary]

Congrats on the catches and personal best, that was cool of Butch ta take you 2 out, hats off to him if he reads this (salute !)

If I may give you a little food for thought, not that the lures that were used aren't important, they certainly are but what you may want to be sure to put your focus on if you want to take any pc of longstanding info from your outing is:

what pattern the fish were in at that time and the condition that drove the fish into those patterns.

My guess is that you probably hit suspending fish in the thermocline but thats purely speculative of what conditions should be apparent in that lake right now.

Once you can learn to read the lake, it will lead to you being able to catch a liot of fish regularly in many different paternings.

anyway, enough technical jargon..

nice job and again congrats !
Gary

Oh yeah...P.S.

Photo shop ???? what the heck is that guy thinkin' (scratches head !)

[Fire Ball]

Congrats on the catches and personal best, that was cool of Butch ta take you 2 out, hats off to him if he reads this (salute !)

If I may give you a little food for thought, not that the lures that were used aren't important, they certainly are but what you may want to be sure to put your focus on if you want to take any pc of longstanding info from your outing is:

what pattern the fish were in at that time and the condition that drove the fish into those patterns.

My guess is that you probably hit suspending fish in the thermocline but thats purely speculative of what conditions should be apparent in that lake right now.

Once you can learn to read the lake, it will lead to you being able to catch a liot of fish regularly in many different paternings.

anyway, enough technical jargon..

nice job and again congrats !
Gary

Oh yeah...P.S.

Photo shop ???? what the heck is that guy thinkin' (scratches head !)

The fish that we caught were mostly hugging the bottom. I'm guessing they were there because there is more oxygen down there. All I know is that they head deep in the Winter and Summer, lol. I'm not too good at figuring out patterns yet. Thanks Gary!

[bsp]

Patterns for shore fishermen are especially hard to piece together. On a boat, electronics help a lot with pinpointing specifics. Your lure tells you a lot too. Just some questions to ask yourself are, what's the water temperature, what's the bottom composition like, did I get bit hopping the bait across the bottom or did I get hit on a slow drag, was I bit on the fall, when the bait was sitting still, or when the bait was moving?

Most of bass fishing is figuring out the spot within the spot concept. For example, say you are slow dragging a jig along the sides of a point and you get bit. Right before you got bit, you noticed that the bottom changed from chunk rock to sand. Being a smart angler, you start focusing on the structure change along the sides of the point at the depth where you got bit. You don't get another bite though, and wonder what happened. Thinking back, you remember that you pulled a strand of aquatic plant life off your jig when you were unhooking the bass. Then you start focusing on aquatic weed beds off points right next to a transition change from chunk rock to sand and the bass start coming into the boat.

Very rarely will you be able to dial in on a pattern with the very first fish you catch lie in the example, but after 2 or 3 you should be starting to have an idea. In reality, you'd have to try a few different types of lures and take water conditions into account too like clarity, temperature, and current before you got your first bite. Dragging a black and blue jig on the bottom when bass are boiling on shad probably isn't the best idea. The bass can sometimes tell you what lure to use too. If they have red gums and ground down teeth then they've been eating crayfish, and if their teeth are still noticeable and there's no red then they've been eating a lot of shad or other baitfish. Seeing bass attack bluegills or each other is a good hint too.

Hope this helps a it, and keep in mind what I wrote is a very simplified version of reading conditions and patterning bass. You can find an endless amount of information in magazines, online, books, and sometimes videos that all try to decipher the habits of the glorified, gigantic sunfish we call largemouth bass.