BY MIKE STEVENS
ESCONDIDO— Lake Wohlford has entered a sweet spot of sorts. Largemouth bass are getting into spawn mode while trout are still being stocked, and while Wohlford does have its own budget for premium fish, DFW deliveries are still made there. As in, bass-candy-sized trout, and this combination of factors brings out swimbait anglers looking to connect to a trophy bucketmouth. Among them is one of WON’s own, and he recently rang the double-digit-bass bell.
WON readers might not see his name under very many stories (but it does happen) but Brady Garrett covers most of the San Diego-area lakes in the Reports by Region found in each issue. A Long Beach resident but a native of San Marcos, he grew up with Lake Wohlford in his backyard, and he still makes time to hit the Escondido lake as time allows.
Garrett recently hit Wohlford just before a batch of stormy weather rolled in, a cold snap following a warm spell, so he was head-to-toe in AFTCO rain gear and ready to make a day of it. It didn’t take long for him to connect to swimbait-eating bass that he’d immediately motor over to the boat docks for an official weight when his own scale conked out.
“Main pattern didn’t work for the first hour or so, and I started to wonder if the cloudy-weather Wohlford curse was in full effect,” said Garrett. “Wohlford has always been better on sunnier days, for big fish, too. I saw that all the other big bait guys were pretty much doing the same thing, so I tried something just a little different with mine and it paid off.”
The scale at the lake read 10.5 pounds, which was good enough to tie Garrett’s personal best in the largemouth department and stand as his third double-digit bass of all time. Negotiations are currently underway to secure a cast-to-catch video he captured on his GoPro, so look for that in the probably-not-immediate future on WON’s Instagram page.
