Poll - Best tubing lakes in So Cal

[JAMartin]

Ok i want to get everyones opinion on the best lakes to float tube on in Southern California.

Personally ive only fished Irvine and Castaic Lagoon in the tube. Both are really good places to fish.

So lets hear it....anyone....anyone...
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[JapanRon]

Hi there JAMartin,

Good old southern California. Give us a choice. Best Tubing lake for: Trout, Bass, and Panfish. Gotta remember, we've got pay to catch heavy stocked lakes and other lakes.

My and only my favorites are: Trout- June Loop (cheating ha ha), Bass- Oso or Undecided, Panfish- Lake Perris.

It changes year by year.

tsurikichi
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[TubeDude]

[cool] Hey, JR, have you ever tubed Big Bear Lake? I used to do some serious damage on both trout and largies up there. Lots of docks and shoreline structure...including some reedy areas. The bass don't get molested too much, and most of the trouters are bottle baiters (Power Bait, eggs, etc.). Nice scenery...pine trees, bikinis, and all that.

Hint: be on the water before daybreak, with a flyrod, for some big rainbows cruising the banks. They disappear to the depths with the first boat wakes splashing the shoreline. But, there are often decent bass in fairly shallow water most of the day...on a wide variety of plastics.

That's a lake, like many in heavily populated So. Cal, that has a lot of potential, but you really have to get to know it. It treats pros a lot better than rookies. From Corona, you can go up the back way...through Redlands and not have to deal with the Lake Arrowhead crowd.

In a previous reply to JAM I also suggested Casitas, inland from Ventura. That's a pretty good drive from Corona, but offers a shot at a world class bass in some nice surroundings. Some big trout, crappie and cats too.

And, if you take the inland route to San Diego, it's not a long drive to some fantastic bassin' in several excellent lakes down there.
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[JapanRon]

Hey there TubeDude,

Big Bear is good right after ice out and my favorite spot is around fawnskin between the cinderblock wall and the observatory (large shallow bay with dropoff). Besides trout, northern bass like to come right up to the gravel shore. Good fall fishing too with a chance for a hybrid kokanee rainbow. I caught one! Size? If you spread out a newspaper, it was exactly as long as the two pages are wide. You can tube there with a permit and there is a tuber guide too.

Lake Casitas has some good fishing but I understand float tubes are not allowed there so I don't go.

I haven't fished Castiac (lagoon) in a long time so don't know about there but you can tube it.

I don't fish Orange or San Diego county much but I should. I want to go to Laguna Niguel Lake sometime as it is a big tuber lake.

JapanRon
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[TubeDude]

[cool]I just knew I wouldn't get one past ya. Sorry to hear about CAsitas being off limits to tubers. It is probably like Cachuma, farther north. The old "water supply" factor. I tubed it in the olden days, when nobody knew what a float tube was. I guess they finally figured out that if someone stayed out tubing all day, and they weren't wearing waders, that the tuber probably added some additional "nutrients" to the water.

Hey, JR, have you ever fished Isabella? Man, that used to be a great spot for big largies and some great fly flinging for trout too...both in the lake and in the river. Caught some big nasty browns both upstream and downstream in the Kern River. On the lake, during the crappie run, you could tie a tube to one of the trees sticking up in thirty feet of water and catch a hundred or more slabs in a long morning of dunking white marabou jigs.

Got another question too. Have you fished Silverwood for the stripers? They were not in there in my early years, but I understand there are some biggies.

I used to cause myself great stress and unbearable happiness on the forebay of San Luis Reservoir up near the delta. There are some fifty pound plus stripers in there and flinging big streamers with a fairy wand is a deadly way of enticing them. Those babies can pull. And, float tubing is an accepted way of life up there. There are hundreds of spots to launch and fish in the Sacramento River delta area too...for big largies and lots of stripers and such...with salmon and steelhead in the mix a good part of the year. Quite a few tubing clubs up there that have a good handle on things.

So many fish...so little time.
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[JapanRon]

Hey there TubeDude,

Boy that Sacramento River delta fishing sounds good. There's a group that haunt another message board that talk of that area's tubin' ALL the time. I've got striper envy.

I fished the American River up by Red Bluff on their big shad run just after I got back from Nam. They had smokers right on the river bank and everything.

Isabella has shrank to almost nothing comparied to the past but the back-lake shallows (not the Kern River in-flow) looks promising. From the road to Kernville it 50+ feet! straight down to the water level. I kid you not!

Silverwood is interesting as a striper fishery. Haven't been their but they seem to be fishing those big ole giant trout imitation baits for some success. Trout fishing seems to perk up after a plant as does the striper fishing! Duh! Pyramid Lake is a place I haven't gone (tubed) often but it seems like a striper fishery you have to fish deep with anchovies to do really good.

No tubing in the Big Salty for a week now. Nasty water or what?! Gross!

Almost all the pay to fish lakes here are now having float tube tournaments or club meets every month trying to get a new bunch of new customers.

Nuff from me for now,

JapanRon
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