San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

The wife got a couple extra days off this week so we headed up to Menifee, my little aluminum boat trailing us. Tuesday afternoon shift at Perris where I did pretty good in the spring a year ago. Found out it was too early still, the water only got up to 55°. 10° cooler than where I was fishing Otay a week ago and feared topwater might elude me. Sure enough, Nada. Not that I threw it much because I was throwing the deep diving crank bait, which I got used to doing in Mexico and doing well a month ago. What’s nice is that they let you fish till 6 o’clock, 15 minutes past sunset, and band you so you don’t have to be inspected (clean and dry) the next time you come back.

Figured it’d come in handy as it was gonna rain the next day. Started at 11 a.m. Forecast was rain at 4 PM or so but it started at 2 PM and didn’t stop. Most boats immediately headed in. I'd planned on it and donned my 100 MPH bass pro shop rain gear, which I don’t get to use much obviously. After working a couple of points I ran to the back shallows, about 2 miles away from the ramps and got a blowup on the popper first cast. My thought was “yeah man here we go”. Didn’t get another blowup till sunset on a Sammy for the only fish I landed. Hey, stripe off the boat can’t complain. Had thrown jerk baits, buzz baits, d/s Carolina rigs, Ikas you name it. I was the last boat out of the area and staff was a little concerned. It’s hard to see very far when it’s raining hard and they couldn’t see me out on the lake.

I’d debated fishing Skinner that second day but luckily I called to find out what time they close, as I liked Perris for letting you stay open past sunset. Lake staff told me they don’t have the Ramp open right now- they’re rebuilding it. Glad I called, saved me an hour of wasted driving time, thus my fishing Perris again. I’m banded still so I might go back next week. It’s a beautiful lake.

Thanks for the post, I’ve never been to Perris and it looks incredible.
That’s some arsenal of baits you’ve got there.

Enjoyed your post and nice pics as alway Michael.Thanks for sharing and tight lines always.

The deep(ish) bite at Perris is still pretty good.

If you're good with the FFS, you can isolate some of them on the east end and on the various offshore structure.

A week or two of good weather and you'll see the fish pushing up.

Awesome report Michael! I really need to fish that lake at some point. I've drive by it numerous times but never fished it.

Is that frost on that fish?

I fish Perris 1-2 x week still a bit up/ down but IMO ready to go off when weather stables