BY BRIAN COBLE
SAN DIEGO — First off, I’d like to let you know that I am a saltwater bass guy. I help run and put on a spotted bay bass tournament called Spotty Bowl. Saltwater bass is what I do about 90% of the time, fishing local tournaments and out on the bays every weekend.
Occasionally, I go inland, and I love to fish for largemouth bass. We use the exact same gear so it translates right across. I live in San Diego, so I fish San Vicente, El Cap and Lake Hodges. from my bass boat and also a kayak.
This weekend I was invited by Chris, (the Beef Shaman on YouTube) to go to a private event on Lake Barrett. It was a fundraiser event that allowed us to get into the lake a little earlier than opening day. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity. My son (Brian Jr, 20) were really looking forward to it, and we loaded up our kayaks. We were expecting lots of fish from what I’ve heard about Barrett.
We got on the water at about 5:30 a.m. and it was freezing cold, and the bite started out slow for me. I tried for topwater first and failed. People around me were catching fish, so I tried multiple baits to find out what was working, and I got my first fish on a Coolbaits Underspin followed by three or four small 1- and 2-pound bass. Other people were catching a lot more, so I decided to a green Senko rigged weedless. I’m fishing from a Shimano Nasi 1000 with 10-pound Daiwa J-Braid and an 8-pound Berkley Vanish leader.
At 7:40 the bite seemed like it was getting a little better. I was looking for a good point to fish and I saw one with a shoal that extended out about 100 yards that had weeds growing out the top of it. Chris, the Beef Shaman, said that’s usually a good spot. I went around the back side of the weeds, threw my Senko in and got two 2-pound bass pretty quick. Then I went around the other side and threw my Senko into the weeds and felt heavy weight. I knew it was a big fish.
That morning I asked my son what his goals were for the day. He said, “catch seven fish.” He asked me the same question and I said “not lose my big fish.”
There was a ton of luck involved in catching this fish. As soon as the fish realized it was hooked, it ran out to deep water and almost straight down. I yelled at my son who had our only ne to bring it over. He was slowly paddling over when I got my first look at this fish as it breached the surface shaking its head. My adrenaline instantly spiked.
It immediately dove back down and I spent several minutes just holding on as it towed the kayak around. After several minutes the fish wore out a little bit and started gaining some line, and we could look down at the fish. I have never seen a 10-pound bass in in person, and when we saw this fish underwater, we could not believe its size.
The fish came up for one more jump and dove back down. I took my time and slowly got the fish to the surface. My son laid the net in the water, and I lifted the tip of my rod and its head slid directly into the net and my son lifted it out of the water, and we both screamed like little girls.
I could not believe what this fish looked like. Until you’ve seen a 10-plus bass in person, it is just simply amazing. I put it on one scale and weighted it, and I wanted to get a second scale just to double-check its weight. So, I used my son’s scale also, and it went 11.24 pounds.
For the rest of the day, me and my son caught 65 fish which was the best largemouth fishing day we have ever had. But we must have talked about the 11.24 pounder 50 times that day. Describing the catch to each other talking about how lucky we got, and everything that could have gone wrong that didn’t.
I feel super blessed to not only experience this catch with friends on the water but having my son as my net man is something I will never forget. This is a memory I will have for the rest of my life. I never thought I would catch a double-digit bass. I do not claim to be a trophy bass fisherman. I’m just a dad that was out fishing with his son and got extremely lucky.
