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It’s
official:
Bass Lake record broken last week
Cal Tatum
for the Sierra Star
March 31, 2004
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The
state of California doesn’t keep official lake
records of fish caught, but communities keep track
of what has and hasn’t been caught and the Mountain
Area is not any different.
Bass Lake anglers, especially those who fish for
bass, know the largest bass known of was a 14.8-pound
fish caught about five years ago. Last Wednesday,
Allen Borden, owner of ABT Lure Company in Oakhurst,
soundly beat the record by weighing in a 15.17-pound
monster of a bass.
Borden and his employee, Rob Tatum, decided to
break away from the everyday grind of manufacturing
their Gladiator lures and spend the afternoon
fishing. They launched the boat and started casting
seven-inch-long Gladiator lures in a rainbow trout
pattern. Twenty minutes later Borden felt a soft
bite and set the hook. He noticed almost immediately
that he had a big fish on the line. He told his
partner to grab the net.
After getting the fish in the boat Borden broke
out his scale and weighed the fish at approximately
14 pounds. Tatum then felt a bite and set the
hook on a 5.5-pound spotted bass. Spotted bass
grow very slowly in comparison to largemouth bass
and a fish that size is very old.
They called the Sierra Star and the newspaper
sent out a photographer and a reporter. The weight
was estimated since the fish had not been weighed
on a certified scale.
Pictures were taken and put into the front page
of the newspaper. Just before going to press the
Sierra Star received another call from Borden.
It seemed that after finally calming down they
went out again and within just a few minutes,
Borden was hit again and the fight was on. This
fish appeared larger than the first one.
This time Borden made arrangements with the Pines
Market to allow him to weigh his fish on their
certified scale. Everyone at the market was very
helpful, understanding this could be a part of
Bass Lake history.
They weighed the first fish which turned out to
be 12.8 pounds and then they weighed the bigger
fish. The scale finally settled on 15.25 pounds.
They checked the scale again and realized there
was some extra water on the scales so they drained
the water and reweighed the fish. This time it
weighed 15.17 pounds.
Borden was still shaking from the excitement of
catching a lake record fish hours later. Even
the next day he was still showing his excitement.
Bass Lake is not known for producing monster bass.
In fact, most people think of it as a trout lake.
Even the California Department of Fish and Game
showed surprise to hear of such a large bass coming
from Bass Lake.
They have asked Borden to send them some of the
scales from the fish so they can perform a DNA
test to determine if the bass has genes from the
Florida strain bass known to grow extremely large,
especially when trout are available to supplement
their forage. |
