Where Is America’s Bass Capital?
By Fishing Only in Bass Fishing, Fishing Travel - U.S.A.
By Robert Stephens
We travel to three time zones in three days to hear, see and smell where the most popular game fish thrive.
For good reason there is no official trophy for the nation’s best bass-fishing lake. The thing would be ripped apart like a meatloaf in a shark tank. Check it out. Punch "Bass Capital" into an Internet search engine and watch the tote board roll up more than 1,000 hits.
Most are posers. So this curious reporter sizes them up through various fish and wildlife records and narrows the field to three (Lake Toho, Florida; Lake Fork, Texas; and Clear Lake, California). He lines up airlines, rental cars, fishing guides and the moon. He has 72 hours to cover 7,000 miles, to find out how big "big" is and how many "lots" is when it comes to America’s oldest and most popular water activity.
He’s going to catch some bass.
Tuesday, October 21, 6:05 a.m. (Eastern time)
Lake Tohopekaliga (Toho), Florida
It’s an hour before daybreak in central Florida. The air is moist, cool enough for a windbreaker and, but for the fingernail-shaped moon, pitch black. Inside the screen door at Big Toho Marina there are signs of immediate life (a griddle hissing at $3.75 omelets), signs of the good life (a carving on one wall that reads, "Pro Guide Service: Best Days Yesterday and Tomorrow") and signs of the meaning of life (racks of bass lures).
Against the dock outside are sleeping Rangers and Tritons and Skeeters. The guys who drive them have been through this morning routine a thousand times. But the freakishly large fish that live somewhere under the surface of this lake have the men astir all over again.
"I wouldn’t be afraid to say I’ve fished 500 lakes," says pro angler Terry Segraves, stuffing both hands into his jacket pockets under the marina’s outside light, "and Toho excites me every time out. It’s the best natural habitat for big bass."
There are largemouth bass, and there are Florida largemouth bass. They are not the same. Largemouths with no lineage to Florida rarely grow to 10 pounds. They are cold-water fish and live on insects and small fish. Then you have the micropterus salmoides floridanus, also known as the Florida largemouth, and carrying officially recognized pseudonyms based on its physical features: black bass, lineside or, most descriptively, bucketmouth. They grow like bamboo because of their DNA, warm water year round and a Sumo appetite that has them gulping down frogs, snakes, mice and birds. To bulk up their fisheries, biologists in California and Texas began importing Florida largemouth stocks in the early 1970s, and the phenomenon of humongous bass appetites began to spread beyond the Southeast.
It is now 7:05 a.m., and the first strip of orange creases the eastern sky. Rooster tails can be seen behind bass boats half a mile away. This wellspring of Florida largemouths is basically flooded swampland, and the highest structures are pencil reeds, or bulrush, so the horizon is indefinite.
"There they are," says Segraves, shutting down the Evinrude 225 H.O. on his Ranger 520VX and stepping to the bow platform before the boat settles to a full stop. Thirty yards away the water’s surface is bubbling. He flicks an underhand cast and works the reel.
A loud splash is heard.
Segraves, whose muscled calves and Pepsodent-perfect teeth belie his age (56), is unmoved. He hurriedly unhooks a two-pound bass, says, "Little tiny one there," and flips it into the water as if pitching a penny at a fountain.
The standard for tinymouths and largemouths is different on Toho. A two-pound fish is simply an annoyance.
"The lake experienced a drop in big bass production in the early ‘90s that most lakes never completely recover from," says Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologist Marty Mann. "But ours was because of a drawdown that was intended to keep the fish thriving long-term. It worked."
That was never more evident than during the Citgo Bassmaster Top 150 Tournament in January 2001. Dean Rojas of Arizona became the first pro angler in history to weigh in 100 pounds of bass over the four-day event (five-fish limit per day). One day his haul averaged nine pounds apiece. Segraves was on the water that day.
"He was fishing right over there," he says, pointing toward some grass and reeds. "Guys were bringing in 10- and 13-pounders left and right. That brought a lot of attention to the lake."
At 10:15 a.m., under the type of clear blue sky that photographers love and bass anglers hate, Segraves reaches into the livewell, sticks his thumbs in the mouths of two four-pound bass and lowers them into the lake. He then poses with a beer-bellied six-pounder, drops it into the lake and stops his visitor, who is hurrying off the dock to catch a flight to Dallas. Segraves has a message for the Lake Fork zealots.
"You can tell ‘em they wouldn’t have anything if it weren’t for Florida."
His hands are wet. The gloves are off.
Wednesday, October 22, 5:45 a.m. (Central time)
Lake Fork, Texas
For all the differences between Florida’s Lake Toho (flat marshland 30 minutes from Disney World) and Texas’ famed Lake Fork (tightly wooded and 10 minutes from the town of Quitman, which counts actress Sissy Spacek among its 1,700 hometowners), there are commonalities to lunker love. It is long before dawn on Fork’s shore, where The Bass Lantern restaurant serves biscuits and gravy, shares floor space (if not the refrigerator) with the Minnow Bucket Marina and abuts the 17-room Big Bass Motel.
On this morning you could fearlessly say the guests eat, drink and yes, sleep bass, as evidenced by the boat engines literally backed up to the doorknobs of the guest rooms. There is an odor of fish in the clear air — either unrinsed livewells or bathtub-mouths wrestling on the water.
"Few days ago we caught 50, but yesterday we only caught three," says 60-year-old Hollice Joiner, a full-time guide who’s fished the lake since it opened for fishing in 1980. At 6:45 he drops the throttle on his BassCat Pantera 3, combing a part between half-submerged stumps and trees. When told that Toho had given up six bass, three of which were in the one- to two-pound range, 24 hours ago, Joiner smoothes his cotton-colored mustache and harrumphs, "We’ll catch a jillion of those. I’m talking four pounds and bigger."
The confirmed credentials from Lake Fork sound downright Dr. Seuss-ish. Of the 50 biggest bass ever caught in Texas, 35 have been from Lake Fork, including the state record catch of 18.18 pounds. In a historic six-hour span on March 22, 2002, three men in different boats caught bass weighing 13.92, 15.65 and 16.12 pounds — weights for cattle feed, not fish!
Joiner shuts down near Big Caney Creek, where as a kid he saw moonshine being bootlegged. He chucks a spoon 25 yards out. It takes him two casts, or 60 seconds, to land a two-pound bass.
"Little feller." He flips it back without compassion.
There’s action on the reporter’s line too. At the boat is a yellow-hued guy with thin black stripes.
"That’s a yeller," says Joiner. His visitor listens for a sound before realizing Joiner calls all his bass by color.
Yellow bass, which rarely get to two pounds, are stocked every so often to keep lines busy between bigger strikes. Black bass, or Florida largemouth if you recall, were introduced to ponds before Fork Creek was dammed in 1980, flooding the ponds. Nutrients from the soil that made nearby Sulphur Springs famous for its medicinal water, plus an endless buffet of shad, had the immediate impact of Joe Weider’s Crash Weight Gain on the Lake Fork bass.
"Gotta find a big-headed fish," says Joiner. He and his guest have been getting hits on every cast for 45 minutes, yet he inexplicably pulls up the trolling motor and jets over to Rogers Creek — or something like that. "I’m not sure of the official name, but the guy who lives on the hill is Jerry Tom Rogers."
The spot is different, but the harmony is the same: cast, pull and reel, following by the "ploop" of a disposed fish. After an hour the count is 46 bass, two of which are humdrum four-pounder largemouths.
"I believe there’s a 25-pound black in here," says Joiner, who claims to have caught 60 bass of 10 pounds or more from Fork. "’Bout three years ago a friend of mine had a guest catch a 12. Couple minutes later they brought another one to the boat that he said coulda swallered the first. Said it scared him."
At 2 o’clock, or 90 minutes past our scheduled departure time, a new Lake Fork addict announces his 14th "last cast." Joiner and his son, Patrick, have each bagged a couple 4.5-pound bigheads. Including "yellers," more than 150 fish have been reeled in.
"I’m supposed to tell you," Joiner is told on the way back to the docks, "that the fishermen in Florida say these black bass are all their fish."
Joiner cracks a smile and says politely, "You tell them we grow everything bigger in Texas." He pulls the brim of his cap up. "And when you go to California, let ‘em know we catch and release 10-pounders all the time. We just don’t make a big deal about it."
At midafternoon and midweek, Lake Fork is dead calm, except for the barbs being flung east and west.
Thursday, October 23, 6:45 a.m. (Pacific time)
Clear Lake, California
Culture shock sets in on the eastern shore of California’s largest natural lake, this following eight hours of flying, two hours of driving and three hours of sleeping. There is a glimmer of light above Clear Lake, and the air is identically crisp as it was in Florida and Texas, but in it no smells are wafting. No cheese eggs, no baked biscuits, absolutely nothing warm and lard-laden. A drive-through bagel shop in the town of Clearlake is the only eatery open for an early comer, if sunrise can be called "early" for a bass fisherman.
The game, however, is on. Buzzing out from the pier at Redbud Park, one by one, are 157 bass boats with two hopeful anglers in each. It is the first day of the Citgo Bassmaster Western Open, a pro-am event that will put 314 hard-core bass fishermen over the lake’s best spots. Local guide Bob Thein and his guest will leave the ramp last, knowing the best holes have dibs called on them.
"No lake has so many big bass to support this type of activity week after week," says Thein, his thick hands controlling the wheel of a Triton Tr-21.
And this isn’t the only action in town. Getting to Clear Lake involves a drive to the edge of Napa’s wine country, through curvy and escalating roads that reach the water-filled crater at an elevation of 1,326 feet. There you find high-performance boats, giant dinner cruisers, casinos and (gulp) sailboats. Bass anglers are bit players in a scene that is eclectically Californian.
"Got one," says Thein’s guest, reeling in a two-pound saucer-mouth from the edge of the tules.
"Tiny," says Thein. "At least it’s a California bass. Not much of one. But it’s a bass."
Technically, it’s a Florida bass — and less than the average of 2.4 pounds, according to a report from California’s Fish and Game Commission. Clear Lake, which built its resort business on world-famous crappie fishing in the early 1900s, began stocking Florida blacks in 1970. Because the lake is shallow and warm (average depth is 21 feet) and stuffed with natural bait like 6-inch hitch, a bass can gain two or more pounds in a year.
Thein works a brushhog on a spinning reel through weeds between residential docks, shading his face from the unimpeded sun with a camo cap. Every 20 minutes or so he quietly pulls a two- to three-pounder from the water and tosses it back. Two years ago Thein and his paying customers caught more than 40 bass in the nine- to 12-pound range, and he has pictures to prove it.
There are more testimonies. During a tournament last September one competitor raised a 16-pounder from the water. A pro at this day’s weigh-in kept five of the 60 he caught in eight hours. And then there’s the story of the grandpa in Alaska, the only state that has no largemouth bass.
"His grandkids watched the TV shows and wanted to catch a bass," explains Thein. "So he flew them in here, we caught a couple dozen on live shiners and they flew back."
The goal was not the biggest or the most, but simply to feel the feel of a big-mouthed feller weighing down a line. Catching bass. It’s as American as apple pie or baseball. But only a few places in this country can guarantee the payoff. For that some people will travel thousands of miles.
BIGGEST EVER
World record has stood 72 years
To serious bass fishermen, the name George Perry is every bit as huge as Babe Ruth or Elvis Presley, and it was not a career but a 30-second speck in history that made him a legend. For all the modern advances in rods, lures and fish diets, nobody has been able to land a bass bigger than the one Perry caught in June 1932, from his handmade boat with ancient equipment on Montgomery Lake in Telfair County, Georgia.
Perry, then 20 years old, was fishing with buddy Jack Page when, as Perry told outdoor writer Vic Dunaway 35 years ago, "Water splashed everywhere. I thought for sure I’d lost the fish, that he’d dived and hung me up. What had me worried was losing the lure."
On it, he quickly found out, was a monster. The weight: 22 pounds, 4 ounces. The story has so few confirmed details (Perry died in a plane crash in 1974 and Page disappeared long before that) that everyone but Oliver Stone has offered up versions. Five different lures have been credited with the catch. The fish was weighed either at the general store or at the post office. At least five more Montgomery Lakes have popped up on maps since the record catch. Some pro fishermen flat-out deny that the fish was as big as reported.
One fact on record is that Perry won $75 in prizes from Field and Stream‘s Big Fish Contest that year, and he won it again two years later. Other than that, he never cashed in on his record catch. In fact, he and his family did what anyone would have done with a mammoth fish in those days: They ate it.
5 MORE BASS CAPITAL SPOTS
Had we visited all the self-proclaimed bass capitals around the country, we would have been gone for three years. But there were five places that nearly made it into our itinerary:
* Santee Cooper Lakes (Lakes Marion and Moultrie), South Carolina. During interviews for this story, several bass experts called this water the best in the world for sheer numbers of largemouth bass. It also holds the world record for heaviest channel catfish (58 pounds).
* Castaic Lake, California. Four of the top seven bass on Bassmaster’s list of the largest largemouths ever came from Castaic. The fishery is stocked with trout that the bass devour like peanuts. The lake’s fans thought they had a world record bass several years ago, until lead was found planted in its fat belly.
* Guntersville Lake, Alabama. With heavy grasses providing shade and warm water allowing year-round growth, Guntersville, the largest lake in Alabama, is sometimes referred to as "north Florida." It’s one of the best winter bass lakes in the South.
* Lake Champlain, New York. If the target had been smallmouth bass, this would have been our first choice. Everybody we talked with mentioned Champlain as one of the best for smallies. Catching 50 or 60 before 3 p.m. is not unusual.
* Spring Lake, California. This one didn’t register on our screen until the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame ran a story in its publication, The Splash, just before Christmas. The piece showed Leah Trew from Santa Rosa hefting a reported 22-pound, 8-ounce bass. The fish was weighed on a certified scale, and might have broken George Perry’s all-tackle world record (mentioned above) had it not been released before a biologist could perform an "autopsy" to make sure there was no funny business in its stomach.
Used with permission: © 2006 BoatingLife.com
