08-27-2003, 11:12 AM
[cool]Yeah, I first started fishing bays when I was still in high school, in Garden Grove. I mostly fished the back bay of Newport...both days and nights. Like yourself, I watched the tides because I learned from an old timer who showed me the ropes that the fish usually went out with the tide. Even though there was usually a channel left, with some water in it, there were few if any fish. But, when the tide started flooding back in, the fish came with it, to feed on the small marsh fishies and invertebrates that made the back bays their nurseries.
Since then, I have fished bays, harbors and inlets all around the country. It is almost universal that the predatory fish are most active and catchable when the current is moving their buffet table to them. If you can find some good ambush spots and keep casting to them, that's where you will find the fish.
In the salt water marshes and canals below New Orleans, high tide flooded big shallow marshy areas. When the outgoing tide started draining...through "cuts", the redfish, speckled sea trout, flounders and other opportunistic fishies stacked up and competed for every "cockahoe" minnow and shrimp that washed out of the marshes. They liked my 3" twisters and shad just fine too. Had a lot of hundred fish days.
If you want some better fresh water fishing, leave the Santa Ana River Lakes alone and go farther inland to Perris...or up to Silverwood. The pond at Laguna Niguel seems to be getting some good results too.
I have a target of getting back over to the Salton Sea again. But, while I still have my mother to take care of, the longer trips are not an option. One of these days we will be coming over your way for some salt water action too. We'll get a BFT flotilla going.
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Since then, I have fished bays, harbors and inlets all around the country. It is almost universal that the predatory fish are most active and catchable when the current is moving their buffet table to them. If you can find some good ambush spots and keep casting to them, that's where you will find the fish.
In the salt water marshes and canals below New Orleans, high tide flooded big shallow marshy areas. When the outgoing tide started draining...through "cuts", the redfish, speckled sea trout, flounders and other opportunistic fishies stacked up and competed for every "cockahoe" minnow and shrimp that washed out of the marshes. They liked my 3" twisters and shad just fine too. Had a lot of hundred fish days.
If you want some better fresh water fishing, leave the Santa Ana River Lakes alone and go farther inland to Perris...or up to Silverwood. The pond at Laguna Niguel seems to be getting some good results too.
I have a target of getting back over to the Salton Sea again. But, while I still have my mother to take care of, the longer trips are not an option. One of these days we will be coming over your way for some salt water action too. We'll get a BFT flotilla going.
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