Central Coast Lakes

[wrwest]

I have been getting good reports that Santa Margarita Lake is really starting to come on strong. Several of my fishin buddies have been going there and bringing home some nice slabes.
Lopez Lake is starting to pick up. The water is warming and starting to clear up. I went out Monday morning and brought home several nice crappie. Nothing big. Largest about 13 inches smallest 10 inches. It will only get better as it warm up.

[wrwest]

5/2/06

Went to Santa Margarita for a few hours Monday morning. The bite is on, caught 25 crappie mostly short 7-9 inches, several blue gills and a bass. I kept five of the bigger crappie. I would guess right around a pound each. The weather was great, nice and warm. :D

[wrwest]

A coworker and his brother went to Lopez Lake yesterday and brought home two limits (50) crappie. All good size, nothing really big. As the weather warms up it will only get better And I am stuck here at work

[odatria]

I want to take my boys out to lopez to fish. What are the crappie hitting on out there?

[crappiencali]

I have good luck using black and charteuse, and all white tubes on a 1/16 oz head. Either round or horsehead.

[wrwest]

odatria, Welcome to the board. This entire board is a great sight for Learning and fellowshipping with crappie people.
Lopez is a good lake to fish. cappiencali is right on. some other jig that have done real good for me are, two inch curltail grugs, yellow body white tail. Smoke curltail grub. A new lure that I have been using YUM inch and half Beaver Tail Grub. Pumkin Seed Body / Charteuse Tail. Slow retrive...
Have fun..

[wrwest]

Went up to Santa Margarita yesterday morning, Still good action up there. Good weather, A coworker was flyfishing for crappie and caught a 13 pound bass. Not bad. My Cuzin Has been taking his kids out flyfishing too. They have been doing real good.

[odatria]

Went out to Lopez yesterday and pulled this little guy with black and yellow crappie thunder jig. What do you guys think? Is this a decent fish for Lopez?

[wrwest]

Yes I would say that is a gooood crappie for Lopez, good going did you get it on a scale to see what it weighted?

Where were you fishing at. Crappiencali is coming up for the weekend from Oxnard looking for Crappie at Lopez.

[odatria]

I got that fish right behind the store at the marina. My buddy had his boat docked there so when we went to pick it up we fished for a few hours. That was the first fish of the day. It was caught right next to the boat dock. They really dont like people fishing right there, but just had to see if there was anything nice under there .

We went out again today and caught over 60 fish. Here I am with my buddys fish. As you can see he kept a few smaller ones but we must have thrown back 20 small ones. We dumped his bucket first and cleaned them before we left the lake. I dont have a pic of my bucket as I didnt unload mine till I got home.

On a side note. ALL of the redear were caught with mealworms dropped straight down. Let the sinker hit the bottom and BAM!!!

ALL of the crappie were caught fishing from the same spot but with yellow crappie jigs cast about 40 feet from where we were catching the redear.

Im going to be camping at Lopez this weekend so maybe we can all hook up and at least meet. Send me a private message and I will send you guys my phone number.