Lake Casitas is one of the top trophy bass lakes in the world!!! It is located just off the coast of California. Near the town of Ojai. This lake has produced bass in excess of 20 pounds! And has a huge number of bass in the 10 pound plus range. Out of the three lakes I guide, I think Casitas is my favorite for Largemouth. It gives you the best chance at a trophy largemouth. The biggest producer of big bass out of Lake Casitas, are swimbaits. The swimbaits imitate the stocked trout that are put into the lake. The second producer of big bass are live crawdads. There are a wide variety of artificial lures that will work well at catching numbers of largemouth of all sizes! When shad come up in the spring they work well on bass of all sizes, but only when you can net them. Shad are great when you are trying to catch numbers of largemouth. Plus other species like Catfish, Crappie, Red Ear Perch, and Trout eat them. You never know what your going to catch on shad!!!! You can have a really exciting day fishing with shad!!!! The surrounding hills at Lake Casitas has all kinds of wildlife to see, Deer, Coyotes, Bobcat, Wild Pigs, and many types of birds. Lake Casitas also has a wide range of Campsites with and without full hookups. It also has a marina with boat rentals and bait and tackle. There is also a restaurant next to the boat rental.
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Lake Castaic
Lake Castaic
Castaic Lagoon
Lake Castaic is located above the town of Castaic, and just outside of Los Angeles. There is Lake Castaic which is the main lake, and the afterbay which is called the Castaic Lagoon. The afterbay has a large number of trophy bass in it. And the main lake still has some large bass in it. But not the numbers of big fish it used to have. Stripers have gotten into the lake and taken over. There is still a healthy population of largemouth in the lake, they're just not as big, because the have to compete with the stripers for food. Both lakes are planted with trout. So the top lures for both lakes are swimbaits. You can catch both bass and stripers on swimbaits on the main lake. Other top baits are artificial lures and shad (when available in the spring). It is very common to have 100 fish days on shad. The main lake has become an amazing striper fishery and gets better every year!!! When the trout are planted in the winter months, the trout baits work great. There are other technique's that work well also. Most stripers caught on swimbaits should be between 10 to 20 pounds, and there has been stripers over 40 pounds caught at Castaic on our baits. The stripers are strong fish and can give a good fight. And when summer rolls around the striper and bass fishing hold very well for many styles of fishing. And if you can get some shad it can result in a mixed bag of fish!!!! The afterbay has a camping area, and there is a small boat rental shop on the main lake.
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Lake Pyramid
Lake Pyramid is located up the highway from the town of Castaic, and it's known for it's great striper fishing!!!! It's also known for it's healthy population of northern strain largemouth(smaller cousin of the Florida strain). The lake has some incredible smallmouth, that pound for pound fight harder than the largemouth!!! Swimbait fishing for the stripers is great while they are stocking trout. And in the summer the stripers start feeding heavily on the shad and become very active. There are many ways of catching them at this time. And when the stripers don't want to bite, you can turn to the largemouth and smallmouth. It's a fun lake to fish!!!!
