The one largest of the trout I caught at Corona Lake this past January tasted so Dang good smoked with apple wood, I met Breakwalls Tim, Robert and Christian over at Laguna Niguel Lake Sunday morning with hopes this time of filling the Big Chief with fillets.

    The prognostication was excellent.  Last Thursday lake management dumped over three thousand pounds of rainbow trout into the reservoir, all bought from a hatchery in Utah that uses earthen races to raise their product.  This technique produces a fighting fish with a more natural coloration, since their fins don’t wear off and they don’t turn out as light-hued as they would when the grow-out pens are lined with concrete, like most other such facilities.

    We parked on the street, using an underground pedestrian walkway made from a large culvert tube to access the lake.  Our guide for the day, Tim, escorted our group to his hotspot without us having to pay for parking and hiking all the way to this side of the lake.  The three of us gave his thirteen‑year‑old nephew Christian our per-angler $14 permit fee.  He was supposed to ride his bike over to lake headquarters to purchase the documents but instead became engrossed in setting up his outfit, then starting to fish.

    So, I did the same.  After all, Tim and the kid were my guides.  I should do what they do.  I started with one of the score of redworms I picked from around the house after our last rainstorm.  While that bait was suspended four feet under a small bubble, I watched as my cohort scored first using Power Bait.

    I drove all the way over here, I might as well catch something.  After 20 minutes I surrendered the worm for the usual wad of what they were using, in the rainbow glitter pattern, molded to a #14 treble hook tied to a fifteen-inch length of two‑pound leader.  It seemed it only took about one minute after the one‑eighth ounce egg sinker hit bottom before I had a line going out.  A swing of the rod and hook‑up, I was on!

    The stories are true.  For where they came from they put up a vigorous struggle, not wanting to relinquish themselves to the net as quickly as one of the cement‑raised variety would.  I led the trout out of some weeds and tree branches as it lugged left and right, pulling out a bit of drag.  Alas, with the fish into the scoop, I turned around to show everyone my first smoker victim and there he was, pulling up on his quad runner, Mr. Ranger Sir.

    With a disdainful look in his eye, suggesting he wondered where my permit might be, I blurted, “Well officer, it’s like this...,” then gave him my sad story about how Robert and I gave this kid our money but we never received anything in return because he’s too busy at the moment fishing with Unkie Tim.  I could sense the man was used to goofballs like us.  It was cool.  Big Tim sent the kid on his way over to the main office and another wad was airborne.

    Fishing was really good today.  Not only the Breakwall crew, but also everyone else around were doing a lot of catching.  One guy was flipping plastic worms into a half‑submerged tree to pull out two black bass, the largest going about a pound.

    I had lots of bites, but not all of them stuck to the hook.  I was in a hurry when I was at the Big 5 the other day.  I didn’t realize until I was at the lake that I bought South Bend gold treble hooks.  They’re really crummy, just like about everything else distributed by that manufacturer.  They weren’t sharp and they bend like they’re made of lead.  Luckily I found a nice Mustad bronze treble in my tackle pouch.  After that, my hooking rate improved.

    Eight o’clock started one hour of sullen bite.  In the meantime with my other pole while my bait was soaking I cast a rainbow trout pattern Kastmaster to amuse myself.  Robert pulled himself out of the doldrums with a bottle of secret sauce.  He found if he coated his Power Bait with Procure Garlic Oil he had more hits.  In fact he started to catch more than all of us.  Next thing you know we were lining up at his lawnchair for a drop or two to sprinkle on our baits.

    We were netting each other’s fish as they were brought to shore.  One of the fish I winched up looked kind of small, so I waived the net to bounce it up onto the dirt.  Snap.  Goodbye fishie.  That sometimes happens if you’re too lazy to retie after three landings.

    I had one hook-up in particular that felt big and beefy, like maybe a three‑pounder.  It fought for ten minutes before I subdued it, making several runs of the drag and generally feeling like the fish was entangled with a bunch of debris.  When it finally came to color I saw it was free and clear of any obstructions; it was just fat and a natural fighter.  As I held it up I thought it looked to be about two pounds, but on the scale it registered only one pound one ounce.

    With all the good fishermen arriving early, by ten we were kicking back, dozing into the alpha zone.  We had seen and heard several surface disturbances caused by fish throughout the morning, but nothing sparked our alertness like this one extremely huge gigantic splash going off about two feet from shore.  It sounded like a 200-pounder and it was... Robert tripping into the lake, standing there with the water level up to his ‘Dans.

    A stunt like that would scare the fish into paranoia anywhere else.  Not here, though.  We all kept fishing and catching until everyone in our group went home with a limit of five, which was sometime around noon.

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