WON FIELD REPORTER Andrew Mack with the four trout he kept out of 20 caught (the rest released) on plastics during an epic day of fishing at Lake Hemet after a big 4,000-pound stock last week.
WON’s newest field staffer, Andrew Mack was on the spot, and he had an epic day of fishing highlighted by a stat line that provides a great look at the quality of trout that are in there.
After some searching around for schools, Mack’s first biter was a 6.5 pounder on a shoreline he had all to himself. They kept biting, and anglers starting moving into the area to take advantage of the hot bite which was – believe it or not – exactly what Mack hoped would happen.
“I yelled, ‘fresh one!’ in hope of calling more anglers over because I found a school of jumbos and didn’t want to be greedy, and I love seeing other people catching.”
LITTLE ANGLER with a big Lake Hemet score.
Once Mack had four on a stringer, he went into catch-and-release mode which was a piece of cake with jigs on a drop-shot rig winding up right in each trout’s “beak” which made for easy unhooking. When the smoke cleared, he had caught a 9.4-pound rainbow, a 7.38, four over 6, a 5.9, three over 4 pounds, a pair over 3, five 2 pounders and “three 8-inch trout.” Those are hall-of-fame numbers on any California trout lake.
All this fish were caught on a Paul Jish Minnow in yellow/white dipped in Bite-On Red Crimson and drop-shotted on a #8 Owner Mosquito hook and 2-pound smoke Izorline XXX.
“It was so worth making the trip up there, I felt like I was fish- ing in the Sierra!,” added Mack. “Snow on the ground, I heard a bald eagle, lots of big fish, it was just crazy. A day like today will be hard to top, that’s for sure.”
WON reader Gerardo Aguilar also reached out with a report from the same day. He compiled his limit working white minijigs and white (plastic) minnows on a drop-shot rig of his own. All the trout in is haul ranged from 4 to 8 pounds.
