Laguna Niguel Lake 1/12
I Picked up Breakwall Dan this morning at 5:15 for a short ride down the street to fish Laguna Niguel Lake. Yesterday they stocked 2,500 pounds of Sierra Bows. How can we miss?
In lieu of waiting in line outside the lot, I like parking curbside on Yosemite Road. There’s an access tunnel under La Paz Road that enters the park near the dam. At a nearby bench we offload our equipment and Dan watches the pile while I walk over to the concession area to buy the $20 permit.
I was over there fifteen minutes before the presumed 6am opening. I relaxed at a picnic table while listening to my pocket radio via ear buds. Five until six a lake employee walked up with a light and wondered, how’s it going? I asked, what time does the permit shack open. He replied, it’s open now. Cool, I said, I was waiting for six.
As I got up, a second meaner lake employee approaches with a light and starts yelling, god dammit you better not have any equipment down there. This is B#(($%!T. I don’t need any fistfights. Get the hell out of here, I’ll kick your ass!! People sleep in their cars to get this spot first!!
I looked around thinking maybe someone else was nearby doing something horrible. Nope, nobody here but me. I couldn’t imagine just sitting there could piss anyone off. First dude tells second dude, no, no, he’s ok, he’s waiting to get a permit. Second dude says, I don’t give a $#!t, you better not have any gear down there (by the lake) and shines his light in that direction. I said I have no gear around here. Did you walk in? Yes.
Then he tells me anglers sleep in their cars to get certain spots first and they don’t like it when walk-ins snatch them up. Fights break out, he has to stop the madness and he’s sick of it. I just said I had no idea about any of this. I parked on Yosemite Street so I can fish the other side of the lake. He said, I understand, no problem, yackety yack. So much for first come first served around here.
Sheesh, tough crowd already. Speaking of, there ain’t any crowd yet, I was the sole person at the permit shack and the only cars in the lot were employees’ As I hightailed it back to the peaceful side of the impoundment a line of autos were filing in along the entrance road.
Back at the staging bench I told Dan he gets to go over there next time. We marched on, over to a likely opening in the cattails between two trees. On the six-pound outfit I had a nightcrawler dangling five feet below a bobber and with the four-pound I used Power Bait on a treble hook and a cast-a-bubble filled with water so that it will sink slowly, just like the successfully guy used at Poway last week.
The first hour was dead. I had a hit on the Power Bait at one point but nothing much was doing at this spot. A lake employee buzzing around in a cart checking permits tipped us off that over towards the dam at a wide clearing where the shoreline is steep guys have been catching a lot when sunlight hits the water. After a while we headed that-a-way.
As we set up camp two and cast out, the usual assortment of park walkers paraded by. One asked, how’s fishing? I said, they’re eating dough. You mean, Power Bait? No, I meant I spent $40 in gas and a permit to fish here and I haven’t caught one yet!
That is, until 11, when I hooked the first fish of the day. It came after I tried a new trick. Instead of having the nightcrawler dangling below a bobber, I filled the bubble with water and inflated the worm’s tail section with an insulin syringe so that the whole outfit sank slowly and the worm would end up suspended if the rig hit bottom. When the worm was not inflated I had no hits. Also I used Nitro Gravy on one worm and Liquid Krill on another but had no takers. Just the plain ol’ straight-from-the-box unflavored nightcrawler worked. I saw the slack line tighten and set the hook on the rainbow trout, which eyeballed somewhere around two pounds.
For a five years I had a Berkeley 50-lb electronic fish scale that I bought new batteries for but it still didn’t turn on. I found another for the right price on eBay and bought it but it’s coming from Canada. Every time I buy something from our northern neighbors it takes at least four weeks to be delivered so we’re guessing the weights for a while.
There were two rental boats to our left fishing the outskirts of one of the aerator outlets. They had their five fish limits fairly quickly. We were wondering what they were using that we’re not to bag these beauties. I whipped out my trusty monocular to spy on the four danglers and saw chartreuse dough bait and nightcrawlers, the same ol’ same ol’
I pointed my scope across the lake toward a group who were hootin’ and hollerin’ and saw one of’em land a trout that looked to be over ten pounds.
Around noon, as I was reeling in my Power Bait slowly I felt nibbles. I slackened the line but whatever it was did not return to finish it off. I ended up with a mangled dough ball. Near that time as I slowly reeled in the nightcrawler the same thing happened.
Not too long after, I hooked another with the worm as it slowly sank. This fish, just like the previous, didn’t fight as well as the Tailwalkers at Poway. However, when Dan dipped the net the fish spooked into several runs to try to get away. I was all over it, well trained lately in the skill of fighting fatties with light line. Five minutes later Dan lifted a net full of three pounder.
At 13:00 Dan’s nightcrawler rod got yanked hard but by the time he ran over and grabbed it the fish was gone.
They’re stocking Poway with 1,500 pounds next Wednesday 1/19. I can’t wait to try out the slowly sinking inflated ’crawler trick.
I've been filleting all trout caught during the past few trips and freezing them, then once I have a collection that will fit on the five racks in my smoker I’ll burn a few pans of apple wood under them to make tasty treats.