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Originally Posted by
etucker1959
Before I sound like a Buzz Kill, let me say some very positive things about the Free fishing derby at Irvine lake. First of all everyone was really nice and even the God father of Irvine lake (supervisor Wagner) thanked us personally for coming out! They had raffle prizes every hour, 10 blind bogey winning fish and 3 top prizes for the largest fish. The winning fish got a 65 inch TV! Sounds great doesn't it, all this and it's a Free fishing derby! It would be, if all I was interested in was winning raffles and prizes! But I'm not looking to win prizes, "But Catch fish!" That's what I do, I"M A FISHERMEN FIRST!
So I looked at it from a fishing stand point and the results were very disappointing! The average person or group caught 0-3 fish! Me and my buddy each caught 1 half pound trout! (that was it for us) Going fishing for 1 half pound trout, are you kidding me! What went wrong?????? Did they not stock fish??? Yeah they stocked 4,000 pounds of fish, including many big ones! Just too show you how bad the fishing was, they stocked 20 tagged fish and no one caught any of them! Also they caught only 1 fish over 3 pounds. Basically they stocked a bunch of non biting fish!
What a bunch of non biting fish????? How could that happen?????? Easy because they used a brand new hatchery from Idaho and had no idea how these fish would react when their first stocked! I hate to admit this, but I'm kinda of am expert on the different hatchery's trout on how they react and what they want to bite on! I can tell everyone right now, the best bait for these trout at Irvine lake is Power Worms dipped in garlic, Wacky rigged with a number 12 hook! That's half the equation, the other half is when do they bite after their stocked? Obviously these fish don't bite in big numbers, right after their put in the lake as evidence by the poor showing on Derby day! (the fish were stocked on Friday and the Derby was Saturday)
Ever fished SARL????? They stock every Thursday and because they use the Mount Lassen trout hatchery. Those fish bite right out of the truck!!! It got so bad, they don't even allow you to fish on stock day! That's why Friday is their big day and why they put fish in pens to release later! See where I'm going with this???? If they had used Mount Lassen trout, their derby it would have been a big success! But they didn't!!!! They used an unknown hatchery and for all intense and purposes they put on a crappy derby in the sense of catching fish! They put in 4,000 pounds instead of the usual 1,000 pounds of trout and it sucked! This bodes well for the next couple of weeks at Irvine Lake, when these fish finally get hungry! But for their derby they blew it! The fish will be biting really good, when their will be hardly anybody there fishing for them! (they had a huge crowd for their derby) The Best things they could have done for the derby, (besides using a different hatchery) was to stock them on a Monday or Tuesday instead of Friday! Or do the derby late in the season, when the trout are already built up in the lake. (they instead did the derby early, when they did only 1 trout stocking before the derby) But hey, that would have meant the person in charge would have understand things about fishing! Instead they got somebody who thought, "stock enough fish and it will work out!" WELL IT DIDN'T!!!!!!!!