San Diego’s Six Reservoirs Are Brimming With Largemouth : The Home of Big Bass

Jim Brown, the man who manages the fishing operations at San Diego’s six city-operated reservoirs, was showing a visitor around Otay Lake, about three miles north of the Mexican border.

The 1,000-acre reservoir was nearly full. Near its shores, dead cottonwood stickups protruded from the surface. It was mid-morning on a weekday, but more than 30 small boats were in the Harvey Arm.

Otay Lake, less than an hour from downtown San Diego, could just as well be in another state. From most shore areas, no homes are visible. The rock-strewn slopes of 3,500-foot Otay Mountain and Tecate Peak loom to the east. It’s a way-out-in-the-country setting.

Bass fishermen stood in their boats, intently casting plugs and lures at cottonwood and eucalyptus stickups and submerged sagebrush. A couple of boats were on their way to a spot at the end of the arm, where gulls were diving on shad.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the lake, a couple of shore fishermen had hiked through brush to fish from the water’s edge, at Otay County Park, where there are tent and RV camping facilities, and picnic benches.

For the last few years, San Diego’s city lakes have been hot. Largemouth bass fishing there, fishermen say, is as good now as it’s ever been.

“We’re reaping the benefits of the 1978-1982 wet cycle here now,” Brown said. “Even though our reservoir water levels have dropped some this spring and summer, we’ve got almost as much quality bass habitat in our lakes now as we’ve ever had.

“My father liked to tell me the 1930s and 1940s were tops for bass fishing in San Diego, but we’ve got good records and we know that for both size and quantity of fish, and for large areas of water to fish, this is the best it’s ever been.

“Until the mid-1960s, the bass record at most of the city lakes was around seven pounds. Now, it’s over 15 at all of them. In the spring, when we compile our weekly fish report for the newspapers, only people who’ve caught nine-pound or larger bass make the lists.”

There are a lot of Southern California bass fishermen who think San Diego’s bass lakes--Otay, Hodges, San Vicente, Sutherland, El Capitan and Miramar--may be not only the best group of bass lakes in California, but maybe the best anywhere. Aficionados of such proven big bass lakes as Casitas in Ventura County and Isabella in Kern County can argue the point, but Brown and his city lakes staff have the data.

“I’ve fished a lot in Kansas and Missouri and I’d say that, as a group, our lakes in San Diego County are the best bass lakes not only in the United States, but in the world,” said Bill Murphy, longtime San Diego bass fisherman.

Murphy knows a thing or two about big bass. He said he’s caught 260 bass weighing 10 pounds or more in his 30 years on San Diego’s lakes. Murphy is a guy who talks about his last fish as if it were his first.

“You wouldn’t have believed this bass I tied into at El Capitan last weekend,” he was saying. “He jumped completely free of the water three times. Once he went up 2 1/2feet. It was like flying a model airplane. He tied my 7 1/2-foot rod into a coat hanger. I finally got him in, though. He weighed 8 pounds 8 ounces.”

To put it another way, San Diego bass are so big, even Texas wants some.

“We had two Texas state biologists here a few months ago, live-trapping a dozen pairs to take back to Texas,” Brown said. “I think the state-record bass in Texas is about 15 pounds (15 pounds 8 ounces, actually). It’s bigger than that at all of our lakes.

“Anyhow, they want to start a breeding population in some state ponds in Texas with our bass, and plant the fingerlings.”

Brown’s city lake crews keep closer, more accurate data on catches than is done at any other reservoir or group of reservoirs in Southern California. He reports that in an average year, 100 to 250 largemouth bass nine pounds or larger are caught each year at lakes Otay and Hodges alone, where most of San Diego’s bass fishing occurs.

How come they’re so big?

The story of big largemouth bass in San Diego’s lakes dates to 1959, when Orville Ball, former city lakes supervisor, planted a load of Florida-strain fingerling largemouth bass in Upper Otay Lake. Today, bass anglers in San Diego are still reaping a bountiful harvest from that first seeding.

Upper Otay, a smaller lake adjoining Otay, is closed to fishing now. But for a while, 26 years ago, that was the nursery, the root system, for what became thousands of big, fat fish that bass fishermen have enjoyed catching--or, more accurately, tried catching--for more than two decades. Florida-strain largemouths have also been stocked at lakes Casitas and Isabella, two other Southland big-bass lakes.

Few argue the point that Florida-strain largemouth bass grow bigger than do northern-strain largemouth bass, the strain found at most other western American reservoirs.

There is some argument, however, about why they grow so big. Many bass fishermen will tell you they’re smarter, therefore harder to catch, and therefore, like the wily mule deer buck, grow older and bigger.

Biologists aren’t sure there is just one reason why they’re bigger, but the Department of Fish and Game’s Larry Bottroff, who keeps tabs on San Diego lakes, said the difference between northern and Florida strains is in their behavior patterns.

“Floridas are harder to catch, I think everyone agrees with that,” he said. “The question is why. Part of it, I think, is that Floridas don’t behave like northerns. Northerns are structure oriented and are almost always caught near structures--tree stumps, brush, logs and the like.

“Floridas are sometimes found in open water, and fishermen don’t often fish open water for bass. I also think they react negatively to heavy fishing pressure. When there’re a lot of boats on the water, they don’t appear to be caught proportionately in the same numbers.”

Brown said that fishing pressure on San Diego’s bass is intensive, but that they are shielded from day-after-day fishing pressure.

“We have a nine-month, three-days-a-week season at Otay, Hodges, Sutherland and El Capitan,” he said.

Carlos Rodrigues, 17, won the bet. He laughed as he pulled his 4-pound, 4-ounce largemouth off the scale at Otay’s rental dock.

Rodrigues, from nearby Chula Vista, had won a friendly wager with his fishing pals, Chris Duffy and Todd Freeman, that he’d emerge from this outing with the biggest catch.

The three had rented a city boat and fished all morning only a few hundred feet from the rental dock.

“We caught 10 or 12 bass, I guess,” Rodrigues said.

Bill Foster, who operates the Otay tackle shop and rental dock for the city, says the best bet for a lure at Otay on hot summer mornings is anything that looks like a shad.

“This time of year, bass are chasin’ shad all over the lake,” he said. “You’re likely to see shad and bass breaking water almost anywhere. When you do, throw a shad look-alike at the boil.”

An hour later, Brown was driving north on Sweetwater Boulevard in National City when he cheered and pointed to the bumper sticker on a vehicle he was following.

It read: “Catch and release means better bassin.’ ”

“See?” he said. “We get the word out in San Diego.”

He talked about the national exposure the city’s lakes have received in the nation’s outdoor press, then said:

“I was in British Columbia once for a salmon tournament and my fishing partner one day was a guy from Japan. When I told him I was from San Diego, he said: ‘Ahhh, San Diego--big bass!’

“I gotta tell you, that felt terrific.”

Lake Hodges, San Diego County’s most heavily fished lake, is about five miles south of Escondido. Most of the lake is hidden from view of passing freeway drivers. Most of Hodges meanders west, into its Dam Arm, with brushy, steep canyon sides.

Below the Hodges Dam, the San Dieguito River, when it’s wet, trickles through more canyon lands and eventually flows by Del Mar race track on its way to the ocean.

At mid-day, Hodges, like Otay roughly a thousand acres, seemed about as busy as Otay. About 25 boats were in the Dam Arm.

Hodges, however, doesn’t offer the country setting Otay does. For one thing, the 15 Freeway runs right over the top of it. And the 50-year-old community of Del Dios, hidden under old oaks and eucalyptus, is on the shores of the lake’s west side.

Fishing activity at Hodges, although still productive for those who can get onto the lake, has been slowed somewhat by the dropping water level. The launch ramp has been left high and dry, which means that the only boats on the lake are city-owned rental boats--there are 68--or those that can be launched by hand.

A quick look at San Diego’s other city-operated lakes:

San Vicente--Located near Poway, about 1,000 acres. Open Thursday through Sunday, October through early summer. Best bets: Largemouth bass, rainbow trout.

Sutherland--Located near Ramona, about 300 acres. Open Friday through Sunday. Best bets: Largemouth bass and catfish.

El Capitan--Located near Alpine, about 500 acres. Open Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. Best bets: Largemouth bass, big crappies and blue catfish in 40-pound class.

Miramar--Located near Miramar Naval Air Station, about 160 acres. Open Saturday through Tuesday. Best bet: Planter size rainbow trout.

There are only a handful of natural lakes in Southern California.

The dozens of reservoirs that dot maps of the region are man-made, and the water is owned by utilities ranging in size from small municipal companies to larger ones, such as Los Angeles’ huge Department of Water and Power. At San Diego’s city-operated lakes, the water is owned by the Department of Water Utilities, which impounds and treats the city water supply. The utility’s City Lakes and Recreation Program operates the fishing operations.

In most cases, game fish management in Southland reservoirs is the responsibility of the state Department of Fish and Game.