BY MIKE STEVENS
LAKESIDE – A 15-plus-pound largemouth caught at Otay Reservoir last month set the trophy big-bass bar high to kick off the new year, but that mark was decisively beaten just a couple weeks later at another lake in San Diego County.
San Diego angler Ryan Henson has been fishing Lake Jennings since he was a kid, and one of his latest catches is certainly a if not the catch of a lifetime.
“I picked up a swimbait rod and started fish the edge of the tules and had four followers swim out that day at the same spot, but no takers,” Henson told WON. “I moved and caught a 7 or 8 pounder, but fishing was pretty dead after that. I went back in the afternoon made a cast down the edge of that tule line, slow rolled it she popped out on bait real quick. She grabbed it and I swung, and the whole fight lasted probably 20 seconds. When she was 20 feet off the bank, I assumed she was a 6 to 8 pounder until I pulled her out of the water, and she kept growing.”
That fished tipped the Bubba scale at 17.6 pounds, a new lake record for Lake Jennings.
Henson told WON he actually doesn’t know if this fish does stand as his personal best because when he caught his existing P.B., he didn’t have a scale on hand and he wanted to get the fish back in the water as soon as possible. As impressive as it is that Henson doesn’t know if a 17.6 is his personal best, he was also back at it at Jennings a few days later, and he landed 9.9 to add to his resume.
