This was our first time at the new property in Castroville, WOW, what a beautiful lake! Bill Fetch was right, Google Earth does not do the amount of cover in this lake justice. The pavilion is beautiful…well manicured and in good order. There was actually a crew there trimming trees, and weedeating the area, it looked like a park! We launched our Bass Raider at the end of the dam per the instructions without issue. Third cast along the dam with a Storm Swimbait yielded a 4.5 LMB, 10 min. later my son hooked one on an old school jitterbug that would have easily gone 5lbs, which spit the plug right at the boat, and it just got better from there.  We spent the day catching a total of 35 fish, most of which were between 2-5 pounds, with at least 6 of those over 4lbs. Jackson lost one at the end of the day on a motor oil fluke that hit the bait, ran towards the middle of the lake, made one boil the size of a garbage can lid and broke the line.It was WAY over 5 pounds! I'd like to say there was a pattern but they hit just about anything we threw at them! Storm Wildeye Shad, White Swimjig, Flukes (of all colors), even caught a few on buzzbaits and top-waters, and several on a soft plastic crawfish. The crawfish seemed to produce the smallest fish overall, with the quicker more erratic reaction baits producing the bigger fish. We did fish the deeper timber in the middle, but had no luck there on Rat-L-Traps or Crankbaits at all (nor did these lures produce along the dam). The fish here are VERY aggressive, they hit like a jackhammer, and  fight like baby Tarpon, many times clearing the air by a foot or more. All fish were in 1'-5' water along the ENTIRE perimeter of the shoreline. An interesting note, many of the fish you could see busting bait in the shallows, and we had several that we actually sight cast too and landed. We had wonderful weather cloudy/partly cloudy with very little wind….just an unbelievable day. Landowner came out, and man what a class act. He was very concerned that my son was having a great time, and remarked that everyone from PWF who had been to his place were just great people. We are already planning our next trip to Escondido….by far the best property here in the south we have fished yet!

Posted By: Andrew Dear