Bassin' in the "Dog Days of Summer" & Accidently Caught a "Jumbo" Size Bluegill 8/16
Did not go to Perris on Tuesday due to a post by "QB" saying that the gates were closed on Monday due to some wicked winds and downed power poles. So I decided to hit it up on Thursday just to play it safe and also the air temps will be slightly cooler.
While driving down on the (60) fwy going East, I was passed up by another truck towing a bass boat and I had a good feeling that they were heading to Perris as well. Stopped by the AM/PM to p/u a couple bags of ice to keep my H2O icy cold to deal with the scorching hot heat.
Finally got to the front gate and got my boat inspected and then headed to the launch ramps. When reaching down to the docks, I realized that the person that passed me up on the (60) fwy turned out to be a buddy of mine (Oliver) who I met fishing at the "PUDD" in '07'. After we exchange a few positive words, we were both headed out to different areas of the lake (hope you and your fishing partner did well yesterday Oliver).
Headed out from the marina and decided to stay and fished the N/E end of the lake as my first spot. After metering/graphing the area, saw lots of activity going on from mid depth to the bottom of the lake. Taking the info from my graph, I decided it was best to fish fast moving baits to get the aggresive biters and then slow it down with bottom hugging baits to coaxed the lazy fish into biting. It turned out to be a succesful pattern as I was able to attract, catch, and landed approx. 8 fish off of this spot and that's not including the farmed fish.
It was time for a move so it was down to the South end of the lake and see if my pattern can be duplicated from the first spot. Not much activity going on at this spot but did meter some individual fish marks and from previous past experience success, I was able to scratch a few fish here and there in a 50 yard stretch.
Then I made a bee-line run towards the "Trench" and when I got there, I thought to myself, "Am I at Lake Perris or is this the Horseshoe Kelp" out in the ocean. There were like (5) boats and a float tuber all tight in one 40 yard stretch sitting in 32 to 40 FOW. Did not see anyone hooked up while I was graphing the deeper water in the 45 to 55 FOW. No signs of life for me so I headed back towards my first spot and now the water temps are nearing 86 to 87 degrees. Fished there for another dozen fish or so including a 12" male Bull-Gill that hit my shad imitating lure (what a surprise).
It was almost time to call it a day, but I noticed that all the boats at the trench all left so I made one last move to that spot. I finally found a small concentration of fish and was able to catch 2 fish on consecutive casts. That was a great feeling but all of a sudden, the wind picked up pretty good and I was unable to stay put on the spot without constantly getting hung up and fished it effectively. So I call it quits since it was time to head home anyways.
All in all, it was a pretty good solid day of fishing as I was able to land well over 20 bass from 2 to 4 1/2 pounds and 1 huge Bullgill by accident. Most of the fish were caught anywhere from 19 to 37 FOW and the water temps in the morning was at 81 degrees and rose to 87+ degrees in the afternoon. Here are a couple of pictures including the Bullgill:
Caught on back to back casts:
12" BullGill:
Tight Lines...
JW
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Originally Posted by fishmounter
