OCdockskipper

For LMB, the best bet is to go south (San Diego lakes), north (Casitas, Castiac) or inland (Diamond Valley, Perris). There are literally no public lakes in Orange County where you can launch a boat. Zero. It sucks if you don't live on one of the few small "development" lakes in the area. I do, but my guide fees are exorbitant... ?. Maybe @JustJames is more reasonable out at Canyon Lake (about an hour away) Most of the saltwater fishing is on cattle boats, which I find to be as much fun as driving in freeway traffic. Avoid the piers, they are also overcrowded. You would be the only one there who speaks English and doesn't keep every single thing they catch. There are alot of great things about Orange County & Newport Beach, but as a 55 year resident, I have to be honest that fishing is not one of them. Enjoy the temperate weather, hang out at the Wedge & watch the surfers eat it, go to Knotts Berry Farm instead of Disneyland and if it is cool enough, hike in Trabuco Canyon. Save your fishing trip for when you go to Texas or Florida.

I have used Fishsticks Lure enhancer for about 5 years now. I like the applicator (like a large chapstick) and have had good results. I fish a lot of no feel baits (ned rig, weightless worms & flukes), so there are quite a few bites I never feel. It is nice to see the line going in a direction it shouldn't be as the bass hangs onto and swims off with the bait. The crayfish model has a distinctive smell, the minnow is a bit milder.

your poor wife...?

I saw an interesting aspect to animal behavior last night, albeit it was with waterfowl, not fish. Our lake has some black Australian swans on it, the HOA bought a breeding pair and they have had many cygnets over the years. The swans don't mess with the ducks & coots, but they really dislike the Canada geese. They chase them off at every opportunity and harass them nonstop. Well last night, the HOA put on a fireworks show at the upper end of the lake. As usual, a huge throng of pontoon boats crowded up near that section, making it look like Lake Havasu during spring break. This trapped about 2 dozen Canada geese and a pair of black swans in a section of lake about 5 acres in size. There were the fireworks on one side, boats on the other and people along the sides of both shorelines. When the fireworks show began, the swans & geese panicked. When they realized they couldn't escape, they all huddled together in a tight group, as far from the fireworks as they could get without getting too close to people or the boats. These same swans who mercilessly bully the geese now sought refuge with them and none of the birds seem to care. In a situation of stress, they reacted in a way different then their normal behavior. I'll be curious to see if the bullying picks back up in the next couple of days.

In the same way a beautiful woman can make a rocket scientist dumb, hunger can make the largest bass a bit dimwitted.

I feel this as well, especially if they are novice to intermediate. I notice my catch rates drop, because i am spending more time "guiding" than fishing (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). There were two instances that were much more memorable because I was fishing with someone instead of alone. The first was catching an 8 lb bass with my sister in the boat. She is a fairly proficient bass fisherman, but had never seen a bass that large close up. She freaked out when its head broke the water and was happy to see a fish that big get landed even if she didn't catch it. Seeing me catch it on a Ned rig gave her tons of confidence on that bait and about a year later on a Kentucky farm pond, she used a Ned rig to catch her 7lb PB. The other was a trip with a guy who is a hardcore trout fisherman. He normally uses fly rods, but picked up casting a spinning rod really fast. It was in early April and there were a couple of times where I spotted male bass on beds with the females nearby. I would tell him where to cast and he would drop the lure on a dime, resulting in a hookup. The best one was as we passed a boat dock moving left to right. I spot a bass up on the right side of the dock, tight to it, before we even passed the dock & before he could even see the target. I told him to cast parallel to the dock as soon as it was possible, forgetting that he was left handed. He loops this cast over the docked boat right on target, makes one turn of the reel and the bass exploded on his squarebill. It is fun giving directions to someone who can execute.

I find that chicken livers will catch more catfish, but not as many large ones. I have never used mullet, but here on the west coast we have access to mackerel, both fresh or frozen. I find that the mackerel catch less fish, but they are substantially larger. My hunch is that smaller catfish are more scavenger-like while larger catfish are more predator-like. The mullet, mackerel or other chunks of fish may represent a small baitfish.

What is gained in the accusation that you deleted old Mike Long threads? If this were a site about NFL running backs & you deleted threads about OJ Simpson in 1994 following his wife's murder, I can't see how that would be a negative or something that could be held against you. A person had a public persona, turns out they were fooling the public, eliminating references to them is no big deal. I wouldn't do it, but if a website owner chose to, I can't imagine what negative they could be accused of.

Thank you for the compliment. If you ever find yourself in South Orange County & have the itch to go fishing, give me a heads up. I'd love to see how you fish this lake ?

Actually I am. I installed a BPS XP2 onboard charger (https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/bass-pro-shops-xps-it2-5-onboard-battery-charger) when I bought the battery and have been using it religiously ever since. The boat stays docked & covered in the water year round, so the onboard charge just makes life easier. It is to the right of the garmin depthfinder, just behind the trolling motor. It is halfway below the raised deck, the upper portion of it exposed for circulation. The second picture shows its location prior to me building the casting deck.

Exactly. Florida strain & SoCal climate = some extremely large bass. Not as many 8 - 10 lb bass as in Florida or Texas, but what seems to be the highest top end potential. Dottie was 15% larger than any other LMB ever caught and of the 13 LMB over 20 lbs ever caught, 10 came from SoCal Tom, I miswrote when I mentioned Thread fin shad, you are correct. I was thinking of Golden Shiners, basically Florida's version of an 8" trout.

I don't have any issues running out of power by the end of the day. The single battery still has enough juice hours into a fishing day, it is just less than has been for the previous 4 years. It looks like my current battery is on the downward side of its life and I just want to stay ahead & replace it before it does give out while fishing. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I kind of agree with the part about stocked trout, but the other items you mentioned are often part of the management programs on lakes throughout the South. Texas, Tennessee and other states have introduced Florida strain, many places have slot limits, so all have altered the landscape for big bass. The main reason the biggest bass show up in Southern California is the climate. We are warm without the extremes of Texas & the South. A more temperate environment lends itself to lower stress and longer lives for the fish, whose metabolism is always eating without getting burned up by 90 degree water temps or stopped in its tracks by snow. As for the trout, we really don't have much other forage for big bass here other than bluegill and crayfish. Southern bass feast on shad, both threadfin & gizzards, most So Cal fisheries don't have those baitfish. I'd say trout for shad is a fair trade, although you get more 5 to 10 lb fish with shad and more 15 lb plus with trout.

Thanks for the info. The Walmart near me has a couple of deep cycle ones in stock, but not the Maxx. I'm tempted to grab the $74 model with the 2 year warranty they do have in stock, worse case scenario is it lasts 1/2 as long at 1/2 the price.

The last deep cycle battery I bought for it was a Bass Pro Shops branded model. I bought it 4 1/2 years ago, have used it for a full days fishing about 250 times and have noticed that it is now taking longer to charge and is running down faster than it should, so I am going to replace it. I looked at the current BPS branded batteries and nearly all of them had negative reviews, so I thought I would ask for suggestions based on all y'all's experience. For reference, I have a 46lb thrust Motorguide Trolling motor I run on my 10 ft Pond Prowler and I have a BPS digital on-board charger that the battery is hooked up to 24/7 when not in use (the charger has a maintenance mode). Up until about 6 months ago, the charger would reach the "Go Fish" stage and stay there after about 24 hrs of charging, now it takes over about a week to reach that point.

Wasn't Long in the boat with Mac Wheatley & Jed Whatshisname when Dottie was caught weighing 25 lbs? ** I just looked it up, Long did not fish with those two** It would be interesting to know those two's opinion of the article & video.

You have to know that when people began becoming suspicious and accusations started, the default response of his would be "they are just jealous". You see a similar response all the time when someone achieves success, be it financial, political, celebrity and they act like a jerk. Anyone who calls them out as a jerk will be dismissed as being jealous. The fact is people can achieve success and be jerks or cheaters, those categories are not mutually exclusive and jealousy is rarely the main motivation for pointing it out.

That is the $64,000 question in my opinion. If Strike King uses the same materials they do in their Zero, they will differentiate the product. Otherwise, it just becomes a very small version of their existing lineup.

You will pick it up surprisingly quick. I sprained my wrist a few years ago and the pressure of fighting fish with the spinning rod in my right hand bothered me for a couple of weeks. I switched the handle over & it didn't take long to become competent with it, to the point that setting the hook and landing fish wasn't compromised.

As long as it doesn't break any forum rules http://www.jerkitfishinglures.com/

I was skipping some docks during the middle of the day when I came across this in about 2 feet of water. It took me about 30 seconds to figure out what it was, I kept thinking it was an otter or something else that you would never find in Southern California.

The stranger thing is a catch-22. The parents who would be concerned about a stranger helping their kid are also the same ones who probably wouldnt let him go fishing alone at that age. My rule with kids is I will teach them what they are willing to hear & I'll give them lures, but always from a distance. No way am I going to be the stranger luring kids into my boat. Bank fishing is different, but the same concept applies. @WRB Tom, did you join the Indian Guides as a instructor when that whole thing with the priesthood fell apart? ?

I find that keeper sized bass tend to swallow a Ned Rig faster than fish over 3 lbs. My unscientific theory is that the small fish is trying to get tha bait down his throat before it swims away while the bigger fish kind of forget they ate the little guy. The two largest bass I have caught on it (8 & 7.5) were hooked in the roof of their mouth about halfway back.

What is the 10% that they don't catch? Does the bass just shed some fins when caught, like a lizard dropping its tail? ?

Going through grade school & high school, we were taught about D-Day but never really understood what the soldiers went through. Then I saw the opening scene from "Saving Private Ryan" as a thirty-something and was astonished. Using that portion of the film to help illustrate what occurred would be very effective.