Irvine Lake

The boy and I went fishing at Irvine Lake on Sunday, hoping to land some of the bigger Rainbow trout that were planted there a few weeks ago. We left at around 430am just to get in line at the gate. good thing we left early, because the line formed fairly fast. When the gate opened at 6am, there were probably more than 60 cars waiting to get in. We were the 17th car. This has been the first time we fished Irvine Lake in about two years, and my boy wanted to try out his new Black Gold that he purchased in Hawaii. I just wanted to go fishing. The boy had packed all the rods that he wanted to bring, but decided he wanted to orphan an Old Garcia Conlon that he just fixed the tip on. He didn't want to bring it. he didn't trust it he said because some of the guides were showing rust. I said nonsense, and packed the 30 year old rod into the back of the truck. The Garcia is a fairly old, ultra light action rod that still does its job as we soon found out during the day we fished. I also brought along my old Daiwa Minispin, which I have had since the 1970s. This is a combo rod and reel that features a single ball bearing super ultra light reel matched to an ultra light rod. The boy has an identical one.



Anyway, we set up on the west shore, as that is where the reports stated all the fish were being caught. We baited up with some Powerbait and waited for the luck to play out. The first catch around us occurred when the guys a few yards down from us hooked into and landed a good sized sub 2lb Rainbow. That was around 7am or so. My boy finally hooked into a Rainbow that came unbuttoned right at the shore. Then about 30 minutes later, I hooked into a good sized 2lb Rainbow on Powerbait. Then about 40 minutes after that, I hooked into another bigger 3.7lb Rainbow on PowerBait. Then the boy gets a 2lb'er on PowerBait. The guy next to us helped land all the fish with his net. He also caught 4 trout during the course of the day and placed them into his basket. Then the boy hooked into a jumper, a whopping 4lb trout that jumped several times before we got it to the net. It was a good sized trout that fought pretty hard. Everything was caught on the dough. The funny thing is, three of the four fish were caught on the standby, the old Garcia Conlon that the boy wanted to leave at home, the rod with the cheap $19 Shimano ultralight reel spooled with four pound Yozuri Hybrid line that had been a nuisance on almost every reel we spooled the line onto. Twists and just basic crappy line. The other rods with regular 3lb line went untouched by the trout, though the Black Gold with 2lb line got a workout from the big trout the boy caught. So is it just dumb luck that the Garcia got the majority of the trout for the day, the line, or what. Who knows. All in all it was a pretty fun day at the lake, cold in the morning warming up when the sun came out, then the breeze hit, then glass in the afternoon. And the guy next to us safely released all his trout before he left. Plus, I also saw a raptor scoop a trout up right out of the lake. Don't know what kind of bird it was but it was pretty cool to see. the last time I saw that was in the early 1980s when I saw a Bald Eagle at lake Skinner do the same thing.