BY MIKE STEVENS
POWAY—A new lake-record largemouth bass was hauled out of Lake Poway almost exactly a year from when the previous high mark was set, and the angler in the top spot is no stranger to making headlines in the trophy bucketmouth department.
Jed Dickerson took over the largemouth lead at the diminutive San Diego County fishery with a 14.8 pounder that finally picked up his swimbait after a lot of convincing and a couple swings and misses.
Known throughout the trophy bass community for the years he dedicated to chasing the world-record class largemouth in Dixon Lake that would later become famously known as “Dottie,” Dickerson has been fishing under the radar ever since that mission that became an obsession that lasted nearly a decade and ended in 2008 when Dottie was found belly up in the lake.
Despite taking on a more reclusive approach to fishing, he reached out to Western Outdoor News after bumping off the 14.1-pound largemouth caught by Jesse Lamar in late March of 2024.
“It had been a tough spring for me so far, but I knew I just had to stick with the program,” said Dickerson. “When I got to the lake, it was foggy and cold and there weren’t many people there. Right out of the gate I found a fish that looked to be 10 to 12 pounds, and I fished for her for an hour. I got her to bite the tail of my swimbait twice before she figured out the game and swam off never to be seen again. I just chalked it up to the type of spring I’ve been having.”
Dickerson told WON he’s visited Lake Poway a few times over the last few years and knew it had monster-bass potential. He was also aware of the standing record, and he figured he had a good shot of beating it.
“I was playing poker at Oceans 11 Casino and it was 530 a.m.,” said Dickerson. “I told the players I was playing with that I was taking off because I was going fishing. They just laughed, probably thinking ‘what a sicko.’ Anyway, I went home, changed and headed to Lake Poway.”
After missing his first target, Dickerson came across another monster bass he decided was worth spending some time on.
“When I first saw her, the belly was massive but I couldn’t tell how big she was,” said Dickerson. “She was real cautious and spooky, so I circled the boat around and from deep water I could see she was back on the nest, and I knew it was probably the lake record. The nest was in a hole in the weeds and kind of steep, and she had all the characteristics of a massive bass. I thought she might be close to 17 or 18 pounds, which if she had more length she would be.”
Dickerson pulled off some line, retied his baits and decided to take a stealthy approach by casting from the deeper water.
“I threw a jig in there first and brought it thru the weeds to the nest,” he said. “She dove down on it, but with the steepness of the nest the jig just went down too fast out of the strike zone. I took two casts with the jig and then decided to switch to the Mission Fish swimbait which is pretty weedless. On the first cast she was all over it, but the same thing happened as the Mission Fish just rolled down the nest. So I threw a cast farther up in the weeds, and as I brought it through she went in there 100 miles an hour all pissed off and nailed it.”
According to Dickerson, that bite happened so fast he didn’t have time to set the hook, and he was hoping he would get another chance knowing full well there are times you only get one shot on these bigger, seasoned largemouth.
“I knew I had to try and get a better angle on the nest, so I went shallower and to the side hoping she wouldn’t spook off,” he said. “She stayed in there, but she wasn’t as interested as before. Now I knew she didn’t like it in the weeds, so I brought a cast into the weeds in shallow water, and as soon as it got into the weeds she immediately came all the way up to look at it.”
Dickerson went on to say there was an old tree branch at the back of the nest, and he casted into deeper water while the bass was up shallow and put the swimbait right on that branch.
“She hated that and dove down there and inhaled it,” he said. “I set the hook and immediately she came to the surface. I fought her to the boat as fast as I could and got her in the net, and I knew she was big but also knew she wasn’t long enough to be 17 or 18 pounds. Now I was just hoping she would be the new lake record, and I put her on my scale and knew she was over 14. I still wasn’t sure what the record was, just that it was 14-something, so I called the concession stand and told them i might have the record. I was on the other side of the lake and I didnt want to drag her all the way to the dock, so I asked them to send someone out. Dennis from the dock came out and I showed him the fish, and he decided to go back and get the rangers. They came out, weighed and measured her, and she went 14-pounds, 8 ounces, and she was amazingly 26 inches long by 26 inches fat.”
Life after the quest for Dottie
BY MIKE STEVENS
While playing e-mail tag with Jed Dickerson for over a week after he broke the lake record for largemouth bass at Lake Poway, I couldn’t help but ask him to give WON readers an update on what he’s been up to since all those years making headlines with his fishing partners who were on a mission to bag the next world-record largemouth.
“In 2008 after Dottie died, I took some time off caught up on a lot of sleep,” said Dickerson. “Over the next few years, I fished some but not like I used to. I was a guide for a couple of years and had fun doing that, and I put a lot of people on their personal best bass and trout. Around 2012 or ‘13 I started going a lot again just having fun with it. I really just fell off the radar because I chose not to publicize my catches. From 2012 to 2025, I probably caught close to 40 fish over 10 pounds. Maybe more, and at least half of them were between 12 and 14. I think in 2017 or 2018 my son and I caught 25 fish over 10. It was a magical year that year, I’ve never seen anything like it. In more recent years I’ve been taking friends and family fishing and making sure that their kids catch a bunch of fish and are hooked for life.”
Dickerson said he is still a regular at Oceans 11 Casino, playing at night and “trying to win a few hands.” And it sounds like his son is following right along in his fishing footsteps.
“That year we caught 25 over 10 my son, Jed Jr., was lucky enough to catch the biggest bass that year in California for a junior, so he qualified for the junior big bass championships in Idaho,” he said. “His bass was similar to the one I just caught. It also weighed 14-pounds, 8-ounces. He got to go up there and compete, and I think he finished middle of the pack but had a great experience.”
