Irvine Lake trophy trout to 14-5 going off big time; bass and crappie waking up


In addition to a virtual parade of big trout at Irvine Lake's scales, the resident crappie and bass populations appear to be staging up, reported Jimmy Getty at the Pro Shop. "We had a lot of really big trout weighed in this week, including two over 14 pounds, and three more over 12 pounds", observed Getty. "In the big Sport Chalet tournament on Saturday, you needed at least a 4-15 to be in the top 10. Along with the big trout, the overall trout bite even held up with the heavy weekend crowd, we also saw some good size crappie coming in, and one angler had three big ones that were almost 2 pounds apiece. '


Getty added, "It was a 'perfect storm' of conditions that really perked up all of the fish in the lake. Even the silverside baitfish were active. In particular, the bass bite has exploded, although for the time being it is all the smaller males up to about 4 pounds. The bass bite is on almost everything."


Sport Chalet Tournament organizer Jeff Ingram added, "We had 273 entrants for our event. Fishing started off strong, and backed off slightly when the wind came up. Congratulations to Donald Stevenson of Orange, who topped the event with a huge 14-5 rainbow trout!" Bait dunkers did best along the west shore road and Trout Island, with PowerBait and Pinched Crawlers doing the best at filling up stringers. Trollers found a hotspot where the west shore and dam lines come together, along with mid-lake.


Bass anglers did well using the "kitchen sink" approach, as aggressive males setting up on spawning beds were biting very well. No oversize bucketmouths were confirmed this week, but it's only a matter of time before they move up.


The very few catfish anglers who ventured out did well on whiskerfish to 6 pounds, along with some incidental hybrid striped bass, using mackerel at Rocky Point. Crappie anglers started finding schools of fish suspended at 15 feet, and targeted effort yielded results on big slabs pushing 2 pounds each.


Families with children age 12 and under found slow action in the Kids lagoon due to the very warm weather. Surface temperature on the main lake is 60-62 degrees, with underwater clarity mixed, depending on wind conditions. Lake level is holding steady.