FIRST CAST : JOEL SHANGLE
the big fish of memory
I
’ ve had the amazing good fortune to have many big fish in my life . Through timing , perseverance and flat-out good luck in my travels as a fish writer , I ’ ve been able to lay my hands on grand and glorious giants ranging from 11-foot-long white sturgeon to 50-pound Mackinaw to 70-pound Pacific cubera snapper . All were memorable in their unique way – the sturgeon for its raw power , the Mackinaw for its ancient-looking mottled-grey coloration , the cubera for the violence with which it fought .
But for some odd reason , I remember one fish the most vividly : the bulgy-eyed beast cradled in a net on a pontoon boat on Lake Casitas , California , circa early 2000s . I was eye-to-eye with the first 10-plus-pound largemouth I ’ d ever seen in the wild .
It was a hot mid-summer morning in the rolling hills of northern Ventura County , the third day of a weeklong lap around Southern California for a fellow fish writer and me . We had an overaggressive fishing schedule for the week – both fresh and saltwater – and not enough time to do any of it really well . We ’ d budgeted six hours for Lake Casitas before we were to scamper off to Santa Barbara Harbor to hop on a buddy ’ s boat to fish the Channel Islands .
For those of you who remember Lake Casitas in its heyday , you know that six hours on those hallowed waters was roughly equivalent to a golf fanatic allowing himself 12 minutes at Augusta National .
Before Falcon Lake , Lake Amistad and Mexican big-fish factories like El Salto came on the radar , Lake Casitas was one of most legendary big-bass destinations west of the Mississippi River . It challenged the world record with a 21-pound , 4-ounce behemoth in 1980 , and thanks to a trout-stocking program that filled the lake with “ Vitamin T ” ( for trout , get it ?) that fed its population of fast-growing largemouth , Casitas was hailed by the LA Times , Chicago Tribune and virtually every fishing magazine in the country as a bucket-list destination to catch a 10-pound bass .
In retrospect , six hours was a foolishly short amount of time to dedicate to a world-class bass lake ( ah , the mistakes of youth ). However , that was all the time we had on our agenda for the day , so out we went . Turns out that it was plenty enough time .
Full disclosure : The rod that bent under the load of what looked like a five-gallon bucket was not my own . I was standing on the other end of the pontoon , fiddling with my bait , when my buddy Jamie hooked what would turn out to be the biggest bass either of us had ever seen .
It looked pretty big when it shook its head . It looked bigger when we saw the first flash of a green side . It looked bigger yet when Jamie finally got it close enough to stretch a net under it . And it looked almighty enormous when we lifted it on board and got a good look at it .
Thick shoulders , bulbous , girthy body … just a tank . We had caught fish to 7 pounds that morning , and this fish seemed like it was from another gene pool altogether . We didn ’ t perform any ceremonial weighing or measuring or validating – we just knew . The fish was the mythical 10-plus . My memory doesn ’ t exaggerate that fish at all . I remember it this morning exactly as I saw it that day . I ’ ve seen bigger largemouth since , but that fish is burned into my brain as “ The Big Bass of My Life ”. And now it ’ s your turn : I ’ d dearly love to hear about your most memorable big fish , because I know there are great fish stories a ’ plenty out there among the Bass Fishing readership .
Photos not required ( I ’ ll believe you !), just tell me your story : joel . shangle @ majorleaguefishing . com . I hope you enjoy this “ Big Fish Issue .”
jOEL SHANGLE , EXECUTIVE editor
6 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | APRIL-MAY 2021