Perris 5-11-2012

Planned to hit Lake Gregory, but when I got there with the family, the beach was closed, while the boat house was opened. Scraped that idea. Went to Perris instead. Reached it around 1PM.

Air temp: 87 degrees.
Water temp: local tooner indicated it was 72.
Location: Sail Cove, long the drop-off and weedlines
Hunting depth: 7 to 22ft.
Wind: white caps, howling between 7 to 14mph..not fun for a tuber.

While my family enjoy their day on the beach, I went tubing along the deep sandy shore of the Parking Lots 1 and 2, and hit the Sail Cove. Meet up with the local tooner by the name of Robert. He only hammered a few bluegills. Everyone the shore line got lucky to catch a few sparing spawning bluegills. No red-ear. An Asian family caught one elusive crappie. A young Chinese male (22?), caught himself a nice 5 to 6lbs large mouth bass. He kept that for his meal. Didn't want to poss this at the FNN for the base chasers will a freaking tantrum..

Since I didn't bring my full rig, I was just shooting blind for the school. Hit a supposed spawning area, and my live baits were stolen from me left and right. Red wigglers and Alabama jumpers were the ticket on mosquito and aberdeen hooks. Bend my hooks straight from the fight. What ever was lurking around the weed beds along the Sail Cove and the Dam, these guys were big. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my stronger hooks because I was aiming for panfish. Nightcrawlers were half/half. Plastics, powerbaits, spoons, spinners, and sauces/attractants..no go.

Bummer bout havin only lite tackle.... Ive never fished that spot before might have to give a try....

I thought Bass where only catch and release at Perris?

Nope. Bass can be kept if they exceed 15", and max of 2. Bass chasers are the ones to make rules about catch, picture, and release, especially for Irvine. For me, once in a while, I keep 1 at the 15" mark for eating when my wife wants one for dinner. It also help to increase larger size bass to minimize on competition for food resources, and allowing the pigs to become monstrous hogs. I focus mainly on harvesting panfish at certain size to promote panfish to grow larger sizes. Fishery management in play.

Ahh ok. If I ever catch one i'm going to keep it and just put it in the little local park lake that kids learn to fish from.

Hope that park don't catch you in the act for transporting live bass in and out of each park. Just don't throw any bass into a pond/lake that may be impaired for something, which makes the bass belly up the second it hits the water. On top of that, you have to be careful to prevent the bass from going into thermal shock as you plant it from a warm live well into the cool larger water body. Also make sure that the water you're planting this bass into has other bass in there, or there will be one major upset in the fish population. Imagine that bass get massive because it does not have any competitor for the food source. Bass + lake full of trout/panfish = living behemoth.

TheAsianGuy wrote: Hope that park don't catch you in the act for transporting live bass in and out of each park. Just don't throw any bass into a pond/lake that may be impaired for something, which makes the bass belly up the second it hits the water. On top of that, you have to be careful to prevent the bass from going into thermal shock as you plant it from a warm live well into the cool larger water body. Also make sure that the water you're planting this bass into has other bass in there, or there will be one major upset in the fish population. Imagine that bass get massive because it does not have any competitor for the food source. Bass + lake full of trout/panfish = living behemoth.

Thanks for the tips. There are already several bass in the small lake. From what I heard they where caught at Irvine lake and transported to this small park lake.

As far as thermal shock what I planned on doing was taking a small 30 gallon tank I have as a spare in the garage with me and hook up a heater and air supply to the inverter in case I did catch a fish. Then simply put the bass in that for the ride to it's new home. That's usually how I transport fish from place to place and they have survived as long as 8 hours without any problems.