Hooked on small LMB's off of Bernasconi on Sunday. Drifted down to the east side and landed a couple more, but a little larger. Robo's-
Sculpin FX, and Soft stick baits where working for me. I guess any small plastic is working outside weedline can land LMB right now. Still searching for that lunker at Perris. Anybody out there that was there on Sunday 7/6?



Vince

DFG took all the lunkers and left the rats to chew up our expensive baits. There are a few (very few) lunkers left in there, but don't expect it to be a Castaic that's for sure. I hear the toilet flushing ever time I hear the word Perris mentioned. Too bad. Was a good lake.

how and why did they take all the lunkers out of perris?

put in diamond valley if im not mistaken

Well, for the same reason absolutely no one, and that includes some folks I know that work at Perris, can tell you what lake they went into. Rumor mill at first has alway said Silverwood and Skinner because they are in the same water chain as Perris. Then the Diamond Valley mention popped up which makes total sense. You see the new people in charge at Perris freakin' hate fisherman. That is why all year many of the tourney organizers have had a rough time there and why now there are no tournaments at Perris from June 1 to Sept 31. Since Diamond Valley will be non-body contact it would seem they would like nothing more than to send the fisherman down the road to DV, so come get your fish and get the hell out of here. I suspect that with the opening of DV looming there was probably some realization that after hearing some recent fishing stories from there, it ain't it was preached to be. Could be why they decided to snatch up a grip of fish from Perris and dump them in there to make your initial fishing trip one you will talk about and get more people to sell their EFI motors, drop their shorts, take one in the rear and buy a new 4-stroke or DFI and come out to the state's new creation. Smells all kinds of fishy. Did anyone ever wonder why in the hell the fishing this spring at Silverwood was suddenly off the hook. My partner caught a nine pounder every time he went there. Twice a week with lots of sevens and eights. I heard 100 eights were dumped in there. Had to have come from Perris.

In my last WON Bass supplement they had some tourney results from a recent event at Perris. There were quite a few lunkers wheighed.
NoTrollMotor

how long ago did they take them out?

The first I heard of it, and it was quite a big deal then was in February and into March. That was when there was a sudden decline in the number of "quality" fish being caught. Supposedly someone saw the DFG shocking and taking fish. Of course this is the rumor mill churning and even some high up lake officials admit they are sure of it, but can't prove it either. I know I saw way fewer 5-8 pound fish this year and fewer were caught in tourneys than before. Sure one guys gets a pig and the other forty teams get a sack full of 2.5s. Of course I shouldn't complain since I caught the unofficial biggest bass out of Perris so far this year, but that was my one golden day and one of the few I saw this year at Perris. Normally the damn is loaded, and I mean loaded with 5-10 pounders during the spawn. Good sightfisherman that cover the damn will all tell you in years past it was unbelievable, especially in March and early April. This year I saw one fish that could go over 10 and a handful of smaller ones. Something changed and we will probably never know the real story. Maybe the fish developed a smart gene and are hiding somewhere in the lake that most of us can't find yet. Fortunately it's not our only lake around so it's not the end of the world. Maybe in the long run, the obvious void of quality fish will allow the abundance of rats to grow into quality fish and the lake will get good like it was four or so years ago. Of course this is just my two cents jingling in the rumor can.

Regarding the "rumors" about bass being removed from Perris by the DFG, I recieved the response below. Unless someone actually saw the bass being removed and watched them being planted somewhere else, we should be careful about repeating rumors.

Tom




Tom,

There is not truth to these rumors. I have removed some larger bass for a couple days to display them at various shows but they have all been return alive to the lake. The bass that have gone into Skinner came from Lake Mathews and Diamond Valley Lake. The ones that went into Silverwood came from Lower Otay and Diamond Valley. The only fish removed from Perris were several thousand 2 to 4 inch bluegills which were stocked into Diamond Valley.

Hope this clarifies things for you.

Mike Giusti
Associate Fishery Biologist
(909) 926-7561