The Dog day's of summer are upon us!

[etucker1959]

This is the first time in recent memory, my summer fishing trips are being dictated by the weather! Their is still some fish to be caught in some of my favorite lakes. However, fishing in 90-100 degrees in an open boat is not my idea of fun! Last year in the incredible summer catfish bite we had at Lake Wohlford. I discovered that 84 degrees or less with some wind is ideal comfortable weather to be siting in an open boat! Good Luck in finding that in the last 30 day's. So I gave being clever a try with modest results. I found fishing very early in the morning from shore does work at some lakes like Lake Elsinore. Or going ocean fishing with the cool oceans breezes are nice, but that's not my favorite kind of fishing! I'm really into big Rainbow trout, Crappie in the larger size and of course my favorite Trophy Catfish! I've been Lucky so far this year and have caught 4 Trophy Catfish sorta by just dumb luck. Now I'm really going to target them and Irvine lake is the lake of choice. Besides it being close and cheap to fish, the weather is milder there then the other lakes on my fishing menu. So in the last month counting Sunday July 11 trip, I've made 4 trips there. I caught 2 real nice Catfish the first time I tried, but got skunked on the next 2 trips going back to the same area's.

I do have a network of other fishermen fishing Irvine, so I can monitor the situation a bit more then just what I catch. While I was fishing for Trophy Catfish in the back, their were a few being caught by the boat dock on the West shore and a crap load of LMB. Then for whatever reason the Catfish stop hitting on the West shore and we are back to square 1. Just like General Lee found out at the battle of Gettysburg. After attacking on the right flank and then on the left flank and being unsuccessful, the middle area is where the enemy (Catfish) must be found! I had a buddy of mine who wanted to go and he agreed with that assessment. He got there a little before I did and made a Battan Death March to one of the farthest points to fish. I came down the old concrete boat ramp on the back side of Trout Island and saw where he was and where everybody else was fishing in the middle. Just about on every point somebody was fishing there, but except for a few Bass fishermen, they left the pond un fished. So that's where I was going to give it a try, where nobody was at! A gambling buddy of mine once said and it stuck with me. (Loser's gotta Lose) So I felt even more confident on my choice of spots. We have caught Catfish there before, so it wasn't just a wild shot in the Dark!

Fortunately after trying several Catfish baits last year. (all Mackerel derivatives) We came up with the ideal Catfish bait and smell that I have all the confidence in the world in. (if their is any Catfish around, they will eat this bait) So I'm just going to call this the secret Catfish bait! Lol After arriving to my spot, I surveyed the water and found several promising holes to give a good try too. I made a nice cast and then just waited patiently. After a while more Bass fishermen showed up and they entertained me as I waited. They did catch 3 Bass off of the same bank, so their is life in there. I know what they were thinking about me. What is this Lazy stupid Catfishermen doing in here C blocking our good Bass area! Lol Just about the time their were about to leave, my pole and what my GF also does happened! Lol I was on and it was a Good one! This thing really fought hard, but I had hooked it on the right tackle and the result were predictable. (another good one landed for Eric) With out a scale it hard to judge these big headed Catfish, but he was some where between 15-20 pounds. After awhile my buddy showed up without any positive reports about the points in the middle. He left awhile later without us having any more bites, so I moved my pole way to the right. A weird thing happened, I thought I saw the line move a little bit. But the pole never bent over in the slightest. So when I went to reel it in, their was a 5 pound catfish on the line! So that was all the action I got for the day! (but I was very happy with the results and the weather) The nice part was, "once the wind started blowing" it was very comfortable to fish there right to closing time.