Hi -

I am new to these boards - but very glad to find them!

I fished Lake Isabella this past weekend. The trout were not biting too much, so I switched over to Catfishing. At the reccomendation of the local bait shop, I used frozen shad minnows. Within half an hour I got a nice 2 lb. bullhead that made for a great dinner!

I fished half the day on Sunday in the same spot using my leftover shad, which were a bit ripe by then (I had left them out overnight.) I had no luck on Sunday, despite the easy hookup the day before. I saw lots of jumping fish which appeared to be large brown trout, so I switched to a kastmaster and hooked up with what I could tell was a large fish. It fought very hard, and I pulled it in to realize that it was not brown trout that were jumping, but CARP! Needless to say, I released the carp, as they don't make quite as good a dinner as bullheads! At least he was fun to catch, I would put him at around 4 lbs.

At any rate, I haven't done much catfishing before and would love to try it again sometime. I was wondering why I didn't catch any on sunday? Is it because I left the shad out and they got ripe? I assumed that if they were a bit stinky it might help the catfish bite. Does anyone have any good suggestions on bait to use, or other placed to fish for catfish near LA?

Thanks!

Any day on the water is a good day!