Canyon Lake Topwater Action

Lately I've been itching to catch some bucketmouths on poppers so when my buddy Luc texted me if I wanted to fish Canyon Lake, I jumped at the chance.  Originally Luc was to fish with guide Vaughn Podmore chasing yellowtail at Catalina this weekend but winds made Vaughn cancel the charter.

With his trip canceled Luc decided to fish Canyon for the weekend.  Yesterday he invited John and they did well with 20 fish among them in a very short 3 hour window.  And as always Luc doesn't lower himself to fish anything but poppers (at least on his lake).  Today I would join him to try our luck on the opposite side of the lake they were fishing.

Unlike public Socal lakes, Luc can launch his boat and fish anytime he wants.  So we fished prime time topwater hours hitting the water at 5am which meant I woke up after 3 hours of sleep at 3:30am to arrive at his house on time.

I started with the monster pink popper fly that I caught a beast at Barrett last year.  Luc was the first to hook up and after he managed a handful he suggest I change flies to a white or chartreuse popper.  When Luc makes a suggestion, it is wise to listen.  So I did as I only had one blow up (that I missed) as Luc was already managed a couple.

It was not long before I was on.  My first fish was a four pounder with many more that followed.  As always when Luc thought there was a fish sure enough a fish would come to the surface.

The intention was to only fish to about 9am as the topwater bite shuts down naturally once the sun hits the water but as we had some cloud cover we stay past 10am.  We could have continued but it was starting to get hot and most holes were already hammered by other fishermen so we packed it in.  I lost count of how many fish were landed but it was several, but I lost at least 3 and missed just as many if not more.