I needed to be David Copperfield at Irvine lake today!

[etucker1959]

After evaluating the situation today, I concluded you could catch a limit of trout everyday the lake is open now through February! (at a cost of penny's) But you've got to use as many tricks as David Copperfield the Magician! Here's how I came to that conclusion. The lake is really small right now (where are they going to go?) and their stocking every week with smaller fish. (lot's of fish) However, you do have to out smart them! They are just swimming up and down the shoreline all day. So if you're not getting bit after awhile, you've got to change it up! You only need 3 baits, Powerbait, Night crawlers and Power mice. (you do need an assortment of colors) Besides the Garlic scent! If you got all 3 with you and can cast close, medium and far. So can catch a limit of trout every time you go there!

I'll go over the basic strategy one more time. (it also depends on which day you go on) The strategy for Friday is much different then Sunday. (the dumber fish get caught on Friday) Saturday is half way in between Friday and Sunday's techniques. If fishing on Friday you can catch fish on powerbait and nightcrawlers all morning and then switch to mice tails for the afternoon bite. On Sunday the day I went, it was all on Mice tails!

Here is how the week went. (Jan 1-3)

On Friday high winds basically blew the lake out. Some fish were caught on all 3 baits but the weather made it tough! On Saturday I was twiting off getting skunked somewhere else, but my good friend was fishing there and gave me a good report. Night crawlers were working real well by the boat docks and powerbait and mice tails were working pretty well just about everywhere at a medium cast distance. So on Sunday I started fishing that way and couldn't get a bite at all in the morning! Some random fish were caught on P/B and N/C but it was more just luck! (which I don't have much of) The guy's who went straight to the mice tails did ok in the morning. While in the mean time I was getting skunked! Not to fear, I just needed to go into David Copperfield mode!

It was getting close to 11:00 am so I knew the trout would be farther off shore. So I needed to make a bomb cast to get out there far enough to where the fish were. (I've got an good pole, so I could do it!) I started off with a pink/white mice with super stink garlic. (2 different kinds of garlic) Got bit pretty fast and then nothing for a bit. Changed colors to an white/pink and caught 2 pretty fast. Then switched it up to an orange/white for fish number 4 and then thought what haven't they seen? A pink/white mouse tail wacky rigged and that got me number 5!