Pacemaker Fishing Forum

For years, my high school buddy has been telling about a private lake in California that held huge largemouth bass.  Rumor has it that the bass are bigger than 20 pounds.  I have been telling my buddy that he needs to fish that lake with a Senko, but my buddy was in denial because he knew of no one that ever caught that fish, yet alone someone catching it with an artificial bait.  Since California has a feeding season that lasts most of the year, I can believe this.  I go to California to visit my Dad a couple times a year, so this month, I decided to add a few extra days onto my trip and visit my buddy. 

Typically, my buddy and I fish a big lake at 7,000 feet above sea level for trout.  We use Luhr Jenson lake trolling spoons with a leader and a night crawler at the end.  Usually, we slay them with this technique.  We hit the lake on the Fourth of July and the lake traffic was so high from recreational boaters that we decided trolling for trout was not productive.  My buddy started talking about this private lake and I said let’s try it.

We stopped at the local tackle shop and found a guy that worked there that knew my buddy since he was knee high to a grass hopper.  We told him that we were interested in chasing bass, and I asked his what the best color Senko to use.  He said that the dragon flies are thick now, and to use a smoked root beer color with orange and green flakes.  I bought a couple packs of 4” Senkos and a couple packs of 1/0 Gamakatsu EWG hooks.  The tackle store guy told me I needed 5/0 hooks and 5” Senkos, but I’m confident with the rig I choose so went with that.

I went through my buddies fishing gear and realized it was in sad shape.  I choose the longest rod he had, which was a one piece fiberglass rod with a TN handle and rings.  I took his Shakespeare spinning reel, which sounded like a 2-stroke weed whacker when you reeled it.  I took the reel apart, cleaned it, and lightly lubed it with some old reel lube and line.  The line was a new box of 6# test Stren blue line.  New is relative, since the line was probably purchased when we were in high school, but it was kept in a drawer out of the light and the mountains are very dry with little humidity.  I gave the line some good yanks and it didn’t break.

The private lake’s at about 8,000 feet above sea level and requires a healthy uphill hike to get there.  I’m not use to altitude, so was winded by the time we got up there.  The lake was beautiful sitting right in the middle of pine trees and huge granite stones.  His nine year old son started throwing night crawlers no a bopper and hooked up with nice bluegills right away.  I rigged up the rod and started casting with it.  The fiberglass rod is very different than the high modulus graphite rods I’m ute to.  I started casting the Senko and fishing with a SLIDER lift and drop technique.  The technique is cast and let the bait sink to the bottom, then after a pause, lift slowly, and let the Senko back to the bottom.  Then repeat until the baits back to shore.

On the third cast, I felt the family ‘thunk’ that a big bass makes when he takes bait.  I reeled up any slack, saw the line start moving out towards the center of the lake, and then set the hook hard.  I knew I had a big bass when the drag started screaming.  The lake is pretty clean & free of debris, so I tried to keep the bass in the top part of the water column so she (big bass are always she’s, right?) would not hide under one of the big granite boulders. 
Since we hiked in, we had no net, so as I was fighting the fish, I looked for a place to land it.  Found a nice little micro cove, which was full of grass, so I brought the fish over into the cove and slowly pulled it up the grass.  As soon as the fish was out of water, the line broke, but still was able to grab the fish.

I have no idea how big this fish is, but she’s a pig.  I’ve caught 10# largemouth in Florida, and this fish dwarfed them all.  She was so heavy; my buddy’s nice year old son could not pick her up without help.  After taking a few pictures, I went into the shallow part of the lake, revived the fish and she swam off to live another day.