I went searching for a new body of water to wave my 3wt at last weekend.  My search started at Elizabeth Lake in Green Valley.  The view from the road looked fairly tempting, but my hopes were quickly dashed when I wandered down to the shoreline.  There is a flithy algae/slime along most of the shore, tons of people - some swimming in the murky brownish colored water - and a stiff head-wind.

To make matters worse, at least from the fly-fishing point of view, is how shallow the water runs for at least 30 ft out from the shore.  I didn't walk around the lake to see if it dropped off faster farther from the launch ramp.  It didn't even seem worth investigating.

I asked three different anglers what they were fishing for and got two "I don't know's" and one "I don't know" followed by "Catfish?" and a shoulder shrug.  I did however see what I thought was someone catching a small trout, but it might have been a Castaic swim bait... whatever it was, it wasn't moving much.

The suggestion of catfish in the lake gained substance when I found an 8" dead and bloated catfish in the slime.  Nice.

It should also be noted that an Adventure Pass is required to park in the parking lot provided.

I might swing by and check this lake out again in the winter, but it's doubtful that I will visit again during the summer.  Maybe the fishing is good, maybe there are Bass in there, but I don't have a boat to reach the opposite shore and I'm not float-tubing through the algae slime to find out.  Please drop me a note if I'm all wrong about this place.