Recently I took my nephew, a friend and his young son to Castaic Lake to see if we could catch a mess of striped bass. Now before I proceed let me explain that while I had fished Castaic quite a few times for largemouth bass I never targeted stripers and neither had my friend. Armed with sardines and information on spots to try gathered from websites we arrive at the lake around 8:00. After prepping the boat in the parking lot we proceed to launch the Champion and blast off to the famed buoy line to see if we could hookup with Mr. Stripey. When we arrived there were a few boats already there fishing so I shut down the Mercury and placed the Motorguide trolling motor into the water and motored up and down the buoy line hoping to spot a concentration of fish on the Lowrance but no such luck. So we found an opening between a couple boats, pulled in and prepared to setup our lines.
We rigged up our lines according to all the reports and tips we got which was a size 2 hook with a split shot about 12 inches up the line, basically fly lining, on light line with a chunk of sardine for bait. I was the first to get a bite but missed him because I was asleep at the reel, actually I just was not paying attention and lost my bait. A little while later I got another bite and this time I was ready and managed to set the hook on him and get him to the boat, he was a nice little schoolie so into the livewell he went. A little while later my friend got the bit and managed to get his into the boat so that’s number 2 in the livewell. I forgot to mention, while we caught the 2 fish, the boats around us caught several more than us, hmmm, what were we doing wrong? They were using the same bait and setup as we were, I knew that because we were talking to each other. The only difference was one boat was in a little shallower water and one a little deeper so I figured the fish have to pass by us but that’s why its called fishing and not catching.
After a few hours its time to make a run to another spot that someone had told me about so off we go. On my first cast I get bit, set the hook, swing and a miss. We worked the spot for about an hour with no more bites so take off to Elizabeth Canyon. As we pull into the back of the canyon I’m metering quite a few fish but the canyon is packed with pleasure boaters and besides that its down right hot because of all of the high rock walls holding the heat so we decided to check out Sharon’s rest and while we metered quite a few fish there were just way too many pleasure boaters running around making it impossible to hold on the spot with either the trolling motor or even with an anchor so its back to the buoy line we go.
When we arrive back at the buoy line and one of the boats that was doing great earlier had left so we move into there spot. After an hour or so without any bites we figured out why they had left. I then get on the trolling motor and work my way down the buoy line watching the Lowrance for fish but not finding any large concentration of them. As were going along we watch a boat catch 2 fish real quick so I figured that this would be a good spot to stop. Before we can even get setup the other boat had 4 on at the same time and there were only 2 people in the boat so I figured that this was going to be good but this was not really the case. While we did manage to catch 2 more it took almost 2 hours so that was 4 for the day.
While its true that we didn’t get skunked it was still a slow day. I told my nephew that the next time we went after stripers we would go to Pyramid because I have always been able to get them there.
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Until Next Time, Good Luck and Tight Lines To Ya!
