How many bass do you guys usually catch in SoCal pressured ponds i.e. El Dorado, Legg, etc.

[terribletofu]

Hi everyone, 

 

Long-time lurker, first time poster. I just started bass fishing this year and usually just head over to one of the local parks in SoCal (El Dorado being the most frequest since I live less than 5 minutes away). 

 

From April to June, I would go about once a week and I didn't catch anything. I was on verge of giving up, but went fishing for trout and that kind of revitalized me to keep trucking. Went to Cerritos Regional and finally had a fish on albeit it came off.    

 

I started having more luck (or getting better?) and would catch on average a bass every 2 of 3 trips, but for some reason, this weekend, everything clicked and I got 4 bass on Saturday and 3 bass on Saturday (to be fair, I probably fished a total of 14 hours this weekend), but I was more than happy to catch a bass once every 2 hours. I never caught more than one bass in a day prior to this weekend.  

 

How do you guys usually do at these pressured parks? I'm just curious to see what I should aim for (i.e. was this weekend an outlier and I shouldn't expect it), etc.  

 

Thanks 

[Hammer 4]

Use to fish El D about 3 times a week, a few years ago, I went about 4 months ago, and was let down due to the cattails being over grown on the ranger lake, you can't even fish the east side of it now, and the west side has limited spots compared to a few years ago.

Anyway, yes, very hard to catch bass there now, unlike it was back then, although the fishing was tough, we figured out ways to catch em. The bass you see in my avatar was caught on the east side of the ranger lake, about 8' off the shore line.

When I went the last time, I got skunked.

Keep in mind all the city park ponds/lakes have Major pressure, so what you might want to try is rig up a split shot, with a 4" roboworm, I had good luck with the Hologram Shad and cast it out almost parallel to the shore line, no matter which lake your fishing, I think that's gonna be your best bet.

I've fished Every city park in so. cali even the ones in the O.C. they are all tough.

The only way to get better at it is to fish more, i.e. time on the water. By the way, I never went on weekends. Good luck, and welcome to B.R.

[terribletofu]

3 hours ago, Hammer 4 said:

Use to fish El D about 3 times a week, a few years ago, I went about 4 months ago, and was let down due to the cattails being over grown on the ranger lake, you can't even fish the east side of it now, and the west side has limited spots compared to a few years ago.

Anyway, yes, very hard to catch bass there now, unlike it was back then, although the fishing was tough, we figured out ways to catch em. The bass you see in my avatar was caught on the east side of the ranger lake, about 8 off the shore line.

When I went the last time, I got skunked.

Keep in mind all the city park ponds/lakes have Major pressure, so what you might want to try is rig up a split shot, with a 4" roboworm, I had good luck with the Hologram Shad and cast it out almost parallel to the shore line, no matter which lake your fishing, I think that's gonna be your best bet.

I've fished Every city park in so. cali even the ones in the O.C. they are all tough.

The only way to get better at it is to fish more, i.e. time on the water. By the way, I never went on weekends. Good luck, and welcome to B.R.

Thanks for all of the above info Hammer. Yea the ranger lake is overrun with those cattails. I think i spent a good portion of my time at the park on the weekend walking around the lake and lagoon looking for a spot to cast (i think i walked over 14k steps that day). 

 

 

[Hammer 4]

I forgot to add, that at El D, in one day fishing all of the lakes there, I caught 7 bass, biggest being a tick over 6 lbs. Also on the very first lake, I caught 3 3 1/2 lb'rs within 3 feet of the shore, one right after another.

 Yeah, you can do a lot of walking there, but not nearly as much as at Legg lake..haha

[JustJames]

One bass every two hours is pretty good for city park lake in SoCal. Don’t compare those who fish farm pond out there, totally different animal. 
I used to fish a lot at Cerritos Park 15-20 years ago. It was really tough since then. I fish pretty much every park lake around the luckiest I got was trout limit on a stock day with nobody on the lake.

There are a few ppl here that fish local community pond in your area. You might be able to hook up with them @ghost @Jonas Staggs @skekoam

 

[terribletofu]

d**n 7 fish (esp. one being 6 lbs) in one day is a hella day there. I don't know if I have the energy to hit up all 4 lakes in one day lol. The 1st lake is where I had my initial success, but I kind of ventured off because I want to hook up with a bigger bass one of these days. 

 

I might try and hit up Cerritos more often since it seems to be open later at night. I stopped by Young's Tackle in La Palma and it seems the owner usually catches something there, but I don't know any good spots in Cerritos to cast a line (last I went, I didn't see any weed lines, etc. where I would think bass would be hiding), so the last time I was there, I was just blindly fan casting all over the shore. Last time I went in July, a guy who fishes there multiple times weekly told me he caught 4 fish for the whole year and that made me hesitant to go there on a regular basis.   

 

I used to fish for trout a lot couple years back and could never limit out for some reason. I think I caught 4 multiple times, but could never limit out for some reason. 

[Jonas Staggs]

On 8/16/2022 at 6:41 PM, Bass_Fishing_SoCal said:

One bass every two hours is pretty good for city park lake in SoCal. Don’t compare those who fish farm pond out there, totally different animal. 
I used to fish a lot at Cerritos Park 15-20 years ago. It was really tough since then. I fish pretty much every park lake around the luckiest I got was trout limit on a stock day with nobody on the lake.

There are a few ppl here that fish local community pond in your area. You might be able to hook up with them @ghost @Jonas Staggs @skekoam

 

 

I fished El dorado and handful of times, I usually go expecting to skunk but I have caught a few fish there before.

 

If you live that close to El dorado, you'll be saltwater fishing in no time. I'd suggest looking into it, you'll have a better catch ratio since socal is so pressured. I like saltwater kayak fishing much more than freshwater public park lakes etc.