johnnytoxin

OC itself doesn’t offer a lot of opportunities for bassin. If you are in north county you are within a 1-2 hour drive of Perris, DVL, Big Bear, Puddingstone, Castaic, and Pyramid. All can be really good at times. If you are in South County you have all the San Diego reservoirs within that 1-2 hour drive window. Those lakes can be excellent as well.

A weightless thin senko wacky rigged for open water, Texas rigged for cover will produce at all So Cal lakes. So will drop shotting a 4” roboworm. Start with those two presentations at whatever lake you can fish at and keep at it. Eventually you’ll stick one.

Legg is dirty as hell and just as tough. But I hear there are some nice fish......just very difficult to catch. Not sure about the other lake.

The lakes here in Southern CA do get stocked with rainbow trout every winter. I know for sure Diamond Valley started receiving their plants a few weeks ago and that is the biggest deepest reservoir in So Cal. There is talk of them stocking kokanee salmon in the future because it is so deep it could sustain a population of them, And this place is in the middle of the desert. There is a good chance that there are a few world records swimming around in there.

Donkey punch

Knuckle head

Dropshotting roboworms, and t-rigged plastics are top producers at most of the heavily pressured waters in socal.

@new2bc4bass: when I switch hands in mid cast my left thumb takes over controlling the spool. Its all personal preference/comfort brotha.

You could learn to switch hands before the bait hits the water which a lot of us do. There is no advantage/disadvantage to what hand you reel with. Just do what feels good!

I use a gammy 4/0 ewg and I miss hookups fairly often as well. I'm thing of trying an offset round bend hook since the round bend gives the plastic a little more room to bunch up and the hook point is not inline with the hook eye. Has anyone tried this before?

In my experience they always inhale the jig head portion of the bait

Oh I can't see the pic from my phone sorry. but here in socal when people say hybrid they usually mean white bass/striper

He probably means a "wiper". A hybrid of a white bass and striper

Hell ya you should fish jigs from shore! I am not the best at it but I have been getting some nice fish with 1/2 and 1/4 ounce jigs. Just keep throwing them. It may take a while but its worth it once you land one.

Tell them you have rectal bleeding. They won't ask questions.

Depends what you wanna do with it. For a more all around reel I would take the 6. For plastics, jigs, and other baits you move with the rod go with the 7.

That's all good not saying its for everyone. My only point was make sure its a well-tied knot.

Another knot that is much simpler is a "red phillips" knot. Its basically an overhand knot with a uni. I haven't tried it yet but I may in the future. Supposed to be very small and strong

Here is a link to a post on another forum that I frequent. It also has a link to a video. http://www.hookupsportfishing.com/forum/articles/24987-spectra-mono-fluoro-how-tie.html#post307821

I just switched to using 50# braid with a 12lb fluoro leader on a couple of my baitcasters. Works great for soft plastics, jigs, spinnerbaits etc...... If you wanna throw topwater just loose the leader. Make sure when you use a leader you use a GOOD connection knot!!! I use the Bob Sands knot which I havent seen anyone bring up here and I can say that I am pretty impressed with it.

If you have a very limited budget like I do, I would learn to use a right hand baitcaster. They come up for sale used more frequently than left handers. All of mine were lightly used and I got some incredible deals on them. The fish don't care what hand you use anyway. just my 2 cents

Thanks for the tips guys but I dont think distance is overrated when most of your fishing is done from shore!

The reason I want to try braid is that it lasts longer an is less expensive in the long run than fluoro. I can probably get 3 reels spooled with one 300 yard spool of braid as long as I use mono backing. I have 4 setups and buying different size fluoro for each one every few months can be expensive. I figure if I can spool my baitcasters with one size of braid using leaders when needed, and just use fluoro on my spinning reel it will be way less expensive in the long run.

Hmmm thanks maybe I wiLl give the 50lb a try

50lb has a diameter equivalent to 12lb mono while 30lb has a 8lb equivalent. I was hoping to get away with a smaller diameter for longer casts and less visibility for times when I don't use a leader