Moving to Orange County from Connecticut, what’s the fishing like there? Don’t give up your spot, but is there bass fishing there? Am I going to have to learn to fish in the ocean?

Pick up a copy of Western Outdoor News a weekly publication that has fairly accurate information what is going on in California fishing including SoCal lakes.

Orange county you don’t have a lot of good public bass lakes near you.

Traveling north to lakes Castaic and Casitas both are good. South to San Diego city lakes are all good, south east to Diamond Valley is good, about  1 1/2 to 2 hour drive depending on traffic.

The biggest adjustment is these lakes have Florida intergrade Northern LMB 

that prefer finesse presented soft plastics and swim baits most of the time.

I suggest hiring a guide to learn techniques to fish these lakes.

Tom

 

As WRB mentioned, Orange County itself is very limited in terms of bass fishing. Suburban park lakes, and Irvine Lake ( a private lake that you pay to play (even more than public lakes nearby) are about the only options. The surrounding counties have many more options that are within semi-reasonable driving distance.

Sounds like disappointing news for you.  I got all excited when I moved to Florida. Turns out I am in a terrible and limited area. Good luck!  

12 hours ago, Don51 said:

Sounds like disappointing news for you.  I got all excited when I moved to Florida. Turns out I am in a terrible and limited area. Good luck!  

You can be on Okeechobee in 90 minutes, so there's that.  And the saltwater...

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. 

As mentioned the OC was sent the best spot outside of the suburban lakes.  Irvine Lake use to be really good for bass, nothing big but good numbers.  They use to allow boats in there and it was primarily a catfish/trout lake so not much pressure.  The other lake which was good but private was Lake Mission Viejo.  You need to know someone that has access and it use to be pretty cheap to rent a boat.  Imagine fishing in your bathtub as the water was super clear.  Haven’t fished there in 15+years as I moved to NorCal.  
 

The one saltwater place I would look to get to fish is Newport Harbor and fishing for spotted bay bass.  You can use a lot of your existing freshwater tactics like jigs/dropshot.  I use to love fishing it off my kayak and hitting the docks or grass beds and having a blast.  Head more towards the front of the harbor and toss jerkbaits along the rock wall for Calico bass or barracudas.

Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel were wiped out by yellow algae.  Laguna Niguel just had another event this summer resulting in massive fish kill.

Tom

On 8/30/2025 at 3:47 AM, WRB-2.0 said:

Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel were wiped out by yellow algae.  Laguna Niguel just had another event this summer resulting in massive fish kill.

Tom

wow that sucks, I remember seeing a number of 10lb+ bass in Mission Viejo.