Fishingca,
I am an escapee from SoCal. I fished many of the lakes in LA County at one time or another. Which one(s) are you trying? I had chance to sight fish in some of the lakes where the clarity was pretty good. Something as simple as casting ahead of a school and dragging a nightcrawler in front of them and letting them swim by it was all it took. Have you tried an inflated crawler, or earthworm or baby crawler? The old bass technique of a an egg sinker, swivel and 3-4 feet of leader works well. Or whatever length needed to get in front of them. I used this extensively for catfish and often caught carp in the process. I also left the bail open so the fish could swim a bit without feeling tension.
I have often caught them with 2" chunks of chicken liver or fresh mackerel cast without weight and again with an open bail.
Not sure about your ability and/or desire to travel from LA. I was a regular at Prado Dam in the Chino area for several years. I was after catfish but as I mentioned caught lots of carp. Puddingstone Reservoir in San Dimas has lots of carp there. I grew up in that town and spent a lot of my youth there. Our favorite carp outings were with the use of ultralight rods with 4-6 lb line. The carp there can get quite big and trying to put the brakes on a large fish on that gear was a hoot. The various arms of the lake see less boats and are better for the fishing.
