Potential World Record Spotted Bass

[Feathers and Fins]

If I remember I will scan some of my Grandfathers pictures tonight when I get home of Spots he had caught. Legal size had to be over 15'' and typically a legal spot weighed just shy of 4lbs and a 20'' was close to 6lbs Quill. I have caught many of them in Lake Perris before anglers introduced FL-LMB in the lake and they were big fat trout eating machines, along with waterdogs and crawfish. My best was 19.75 length and 17.25 girth the scale at the lake said 6.89. I was shocked when I saw this thread as I honestly didn't think to many spots were left out there due to people introducing the FL-LMB's in so many of the lakes.

[Quillback]

Those must be really, really, fat spots, the fat 15-16" spots from TR will go 2 -2.5.

[Feathers and Fins]

Well fed, CDFG fed them well pretty much each Tuesday between 2 and 4pm at the boat ramp and they knew it. Not sure if they still are that regular but it was funny watching the old guys filter into the lake set up a pinochle game on the picnic table around noon and waiting on the truck to show up. Looked like a McDonalds in the morning.

[Feathers and Fins]

Taken January 17 1979

Caption said 15 1/2 to 21 inches 2nd from tape had a 9inch trout in in.

[Quillback]

That 2nd spot is ridiculously fat.

[Feathers and Fins]

That's the one that apparently ate a trout.

It was a pretty lake growing up, only about as big at the area around the islands at 12 bridge but plenty of fish in it, super clear and clean, but now it apparently has diapers floating in it during the summer its down 56 feet and smells horrible. Population increase and the lack of respect for the resource out there has turned beauty in to an outhouse.

[Quillback]

The whole state of CA has been ruined, it's too bad.

[Feathers and Fins]

Quill, the one that makes me saddest and sometimes almost to tears is the Salton Sea.

So much of my youth was spent on it hunting and fishing and just enjoying it, now its a dead sea for all purposes. Corvina are gone from all accounts and pretty much just tilapia left.

[hoglaw]

I caught one in Goshen that was over 7lbs. I didn't even realize it was a spot until we got the pictures back. This was in 99 I think, so I didn't have a digital camera at the time. My uncle owns the land where Mill Creek and Richland come together. He used to keep a canoe chained up on a tree for me, so when I was a fresman in college I just had to get out there and walk down the hill, then paddle/wade down richland to the confluence. I'd normally just fish the main pool right there at the bridge, and sometimes the next one up and next one down. That was before they put the boat ramp in out there. I've caught more big bass from that hole than anywhere else I've fished aside from a private lake I have access to near Siloam.

There was a big flood in 2002 or 2003 I think. The lake was high and the river was backed up for a long time. It coincided with the construction of the new bridge and that darn boat ramp. Ever since then, that place has gone WAY downhill. I don't know if it's overfished, or the effluent water has gotten worse, or what. But it used to be that our average days out there would include a dozen bass on white terminator spinnerbaits or floating trick worms with at least one or two of them over 5lbs. We hardly ever saw anyone out there other than in the spring. The fall fishing would always be the best. I wish I would have had my jet back then. It would have been awesome to get up there in the low water when no one else could fish it in something other than a canoe.

Anyway, this was a giant spot that I just assumed was a largemouth. I'm not sure I knew the difference back then anyway. It was 7 and change without a doubt. When I got the picture up, I looked up the state record and saw that it was 7 pounds 15 ounces. I don't think this one was 8 and it certainly wasn't on our scale (that's how good this place was back then...we always had a scale), but it was close enough to be noteworthy. I wish I could find that picture.