My dad and I ventured to our local hometown lake here in Laguna Niguel...South Orange County to the max!!!The guy working the marina happily took $44 from us for four hours of fishing from one of their rental boats. "Take any boat you want!" he said. I replied, "We want the one with the best electric motor and battery!" He assured us that all the boats were good and the batteries had plenty of juice. I was amazed, after loading a decent looking jonboat, to find the Minn Koda motor had been jury-rigged with a toggle switch for on /off operation. The motor looked like hell and was not going to work. I called the guy down from the marina and asked to switch motors(my Dad is a big fella without too much balance, and I wanted a wide flat boat for him to fish out of). The guy wasn't happy to do it and replied, "I thought you guys were catfishing!" My dad has a fly rod and I've got five bass rods and lots of boxes. Catfishing? Yeah guy, get another earing or a tattoo!!!! So we get a better motor on, I hook it up and we go. Immediately I notice the battery is weak and guttless. We put up with it for an hour before I took us in to switch boats. I walked around the dock, got into every boat, and tested the motor and battery before selecting a boat for us to trade. The boats were full of trash, #####ty old cushions and seats, and were furnished with three inches of water in the bottom. So we fished on. I flipped two fish off the island on brush hogs. It blew my Dad's mind to stick fish up close like that. I caught two more on buzzbaits near the creek inlet later on. My Dad is the easiest going guy you'll ever fish with. He didn't boat a fish, got two "takes", and had a great time. I was ready to throw a rod since the $44 dollar charge rang up when we got there. Four hours in a #####ty,leaking, underpowered, boat costs $20. The other $24 gets broken down at $12 per head for the permits. My <BR>Dad paid for us, but the principal kills me. Two guys can fish all day from a good boat and motor and permits at Lake Poway for $25. I've been putting up with B.S. for so long at Laguna Niguel Lake I can't believe it. I fished it long before it got drained and dredged. Those were the good ol' days. You didn't have to pay a thing and the bass fishing was out of sight. Now the lake has a private concession to sell permits and rent boats.It will cost you five dollars to get into the County Park to even drive into the lake!!! There isn't public freshwater to fish in Orange County period!!!Irvine lake and Oso are cash, but the fishing is fantastic. Laguna Niguel Lake needs the county to take over, cut prices in half, and encourage people to fish it. The lake is literally four miles from my house. About the time I got into bass fishing the county decided to drain and dredge the lake. Then it refilled and took time to settle and start a new ecosystem before any fish were caught out of it. Basically, all sorts of B.S. has been going down here and it never stops!!! If you decide to fish Laguna Niguel Lake it had better be for catfish, or right after a trout plant, or semi-annually as a bass fisherman on an average income!!!! The guy working the marina told me all the big bass he's caught this year from there. He's the only one coming out a head.

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