I fished over 100 times this year and I don't think I fished trout once. I have done a fair share of trout fishing over the last 25 years and I can't argue that minijig and lure bites can be fun but outside of that bait dunking is just not my bag. There was a period of time I did a lot wild trout fishing locally and based on my experiencies I can say that the trout which escape being caught (by anglers or predators) GENERALLY DO SURVIVE in Southern California's deep lakes during the summer. As I said they survive not spawn.

This summer if you find yourself wanting to catch a hold over trout but you don't want make the drive up to the Sierra's then try spending a morning deep trolling needle fish on leadcore in front of the dam at lake Perris this summer. There are a few guys who do it and get limits of healthy fish year round. I read an article in Western Outdoors a couple years that noted they catch many of their bigger fish in summer. For those who are considering this I recommend passing on the hold overs trying your luck at fishing the bass. Bass are much more exciting fish to catch IMO. Now if there's anyone out there who has a logical reason why they plant trout at Echo Park all summer I would love to hear the reasoning behind that one. Every other park lake in LA county recieves plants of catfish during summer for the kiddies to catch so why plant trout? They do plant some cats too which the kids seem to catch just fine so still it doesn't make sense.







I was talking about majority of trout and lake. Most of
>lakes DO NOT have big enough creek to support spawning trout.
>There are some exceptions like pyramid lake, piru lake that
>have creeks. Maybe a few trout will be able to survive through
>summer in so cal. GENERALLY they don't, because of the lack of
>oxygen. Trout needs a lot of oxygen to grow. Depth of the lake
>is NOT the point for the fish to survive. The point is the
>AVERAGE water temp and good river or creek for fish to spawn
>and clean water. Trout loves moderate cold water between 50-60
>digree. Brown like a bit warmer water than rainbow. Rainbow is
>not strong against disease which caused by high temp water.
>They need clean water. We don't have many clean water in So
>Cal lakes, Of Course, Maybe A FEW will survive for a while in
>lake. West fork is not good place to fish anymore since we
>didn't have enough rain last winter. DFG did not plant fish in
>most lakes in summer at lower evelation lakes. Maybe they did
>plant some trout in tiny city park lake that most serious
>fisherman don't even care. It doesn't matter if they can
>survive or not and deep enough or not as long as local kid are
>happy. Those extreme low water level in So Cal killed thousans
>of trout in many creeks. But we have had good rain in So Cal
>for the last a few month. Thanks to EL NINO. I hope we will
>have good trout fishing next year.