BASSMASTER : Joe Burkett of Ventura Is in a Class by Himself at Lake Casitas

At first, folks at Lake Casitas thought Joe Burkett was cheating.

Rick Miller of Ventura, for one, couldn’t figure out how a guy who didn’t even use a boat was catching the biggest bass in the lake.

“I used to find a spot where I could watch Joe, and I mean I used binoculars to watch him,” Miller said. “I figured he was using live bait, nets or something. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t cheating at all. He just kept catching and throwing back eight- and nine-pound bass--on days when no one else was catching anything. He’s just a great fisherman with a great touch, that’s all.”

A casual observer of televised bass tournaments or a reader of outdoor magazines would tend to believe you can’t catch a largemouth bass without a $12,000 bass boat and a quarter-ton outboard motor.

Wrong, as Joe Burkett amply demonstrates nearly every day at Lake Casitas.

“It’s common sense,” says Burkett, a retired body-and-fender man who lives in Ventura. “What area of a lake does a bass fisherman in a boat work when he’s on the lake? Just off the shoreline, right? Well, that’s what I do--except I don’t care to put up with the headaches of a boat.”

Burkett has arthritis in his neck and back and finds the motion of a boat uncomfortable.

On the morning of Nov. 9 at Casitas, a 3 x 4-mile reservoir about 10 minutes from Ojai, Burkett tossed one of his favorite cinnamon and blue plastic worms from shore and tied into a 17-pound 6-ounce largemouth. Burkett, who fishes almost every day at Casitas, says he’ll finish 1986 with about 40 eight-pound-or-better bass caught at Casitas, and about 100 over five pounds.

Burkett, 59, believes that the next world-record largemouth could come out of Casitas. And who would be a more logical guy to catch it than Joe Burkett?

“I think there’s 30-pound bass in this lake,” he said. “I’ve had one on in that class. Last May I was standing on a tree stump near the marina and threw a worm out. When I set the hook, he nearly pulled me off the stump.

“When he broke water, he came out only halfway, but it still sounded like someone had thrown a tire in the lake. He had a mouth the size of a dinner plate. I had him on a few minutes, but he broke off brand new 17-pound test line.”

Lake Casitas, to Southland bass fishermen, is famous for more than the having been the site of the rowing competition during the 1984 Olympics. On March 4, 1980, Fullerton fireman Ray Easley caught a 21-3 largemouth, a bass many think is the largest ever caught in the United States. The International Game Fish Assn. says it is, but some bass experts still recognize a reported 1932 Georgia catch by George W. Perry of 22-4.

Of the six largemouth bass world records recognized by the IGFA, two were Casitas fish. Easley caught his 21-3 fish on eight-pound test, and Frank T. Gasperov Jr., caught an 11-pound bass on two-pound test in 1982.

Burkett doesn’t use expensive gear. His rods, reels, line and lures are basic, standard equipment, common to most reservoir fishermen in Southern California. He is, however, fussy about his plastic worms.

“I have my plastic worms (5 1/2 inches long) hand-poured (as opposed to injected mold worms) at Terminator Worms in Oxnard,” he said. “Hand-poured worms are much softer, much more life-like in the water. They’re so soft I can bury the hook-tip just inside the worm.

“I use plastic worms exclusively, but on some slow-fishing days I’ll use a white plug as an attracter. I find bass will follow a plug around but aren’t as likely to hit it as they are a plastic worm. I’ll draw bass close to me with a plug, then switch to a worm.

“Plastic worms are a can’t-miss lure in this lake. If you want a clue, look at the lake parking lot the day after a heavy rain. It’ll be covered with nightcrawlers. Well, that means nightcrawlers are washing into the water, all around the lake.

Big bass didn’t get that way by not noticing things like that. Really, Casitas is a great place to bass-fish after a good rain. In the picnic areas, you can walk around and pick up nightcrawlers off the grass and fill a bucket.”

Joe also keeps a bottle of fish scent in his rear pocket and sprays liberal doses of it on his plastic worms.

“They do work, yes, but not in the way a lot of people think,” he said of the scent sprays. “I don’t believe they entice more bass to hit your worm than would otherwise be the case. But the difference I’ve found is that when they do hit it, they won’t spit it out.”

Burkett also advises patience when working with a plastic worm.

“A lot of guys make a dozen casts in a good-looking spot, then give up and move someplace else,” he said. “If you think you’re casting to good bass habitat, move the worm around. Try making each succeeding cast two feet to the right or left of the previous one. Cover all the area. Remember, those big bass won’t move around for food any more than they have to.”

Another tip for fishermen who might want to try shoreline bass fishing: Watch for early morning cormorant activity.

“I feel like I’ll get hit when I see cormorants in the water at dawn where I’m fishing,” Burkett said. “I’ll see cormorants in the water, chasing little trout or small bait fish, in bass habitat. The cormorants get the little trout running around and that creates bass activity.”

Another bird tip: Watch for coots, also known as mud hens.

“When you see mud hens rooting around in shallow water, they’re trying to roust crawdads out of the mud,” Burkett said. “That not only gets crawdads in the water, but small bait fish, too. That’s another activity that often increases bass activity.”

Burkett’s shore-fishing technique calls for a plastic worm on a gold colored, No. 2, bent-shank hook. Two and a half feet up from the worm is a sharp-pointed, streamlined, three-eighths ounce sinker, shaped so as to slip easily through cracks in rock piles or heavy brush.

From any of his half-dozen favorite spots along Casitas’ shoreline--the lake has a 28-mile shoreline and fishermen can use five miles of it--he casts 50 to 75 feet from shore and slow-cranks the worm back, in short, lively spurts, along the bottom.

And no net will get in the way of any bass Joe Burkett catches.

“I never use a net,” he said. “They have a way of messing up the biggest fish you catch. I patiently play out a big bass, until he’s really done in. Then I just slide him right up on the shore. Sometimes those big ones, they still got a little life in ‘em and when you shoot that big net at them, it spooks them.”

And any bass Joe Burkett catches gets early parole for good behavior.

“I’m not much of a fish-eater,” he said. “I let ‘em all go. Maybe one I let go, I’ll catch again next year and he’ll be even bigger.

“A guy got me so mad a couple weeks ago, I had to leave. I caught this same four-pound fish four or five times in a row, and I was worried I was beating him up too bad, so I left.

“When I gave up my spot, this guy who’d been watching me came over to my spot, caught that same fish, and put it on his stringer. I came back to complain, and he gave me some lip. So I left.”

How about one more tip, from a master shore fisherman?

Burkett pointed to piles of tangled monofilament line, scattered along Casitas’ muddy shore.

“See all that twisted line?” he said. “That was left by fishermen who don’t know how to take line off a spool and put it on their reel. If they don’t do it properly, and 95% of them don’t, that’s what happens. The trick is, you take the line off the spool and put it on the reel in the same pattern that it’s on the spool. Do that, and use swivels, and you’ll never get twists.”

Burkett’s fishing day starts when Casitas opens, at 6 a.m. He begins shore fishing immediately, then appears at the lake coffee shop around 8 a.m. and drinks coffee and talks about bass with any of about 20 other retirees who fish Casitas nearly every day.

For most, he remains a wizard. For Miller, he’s an institution.

“If you had a picture of every six-pound bass Joe has thrown back into this lake, you’d be talking about a lot of money in film,” he said.

“One day last May, some cable TV outfit came down with some hotshot pro bass fisherman to film a show. It was a lousy day of fishing, no one on the lake was catching anything. The pro got one hit, all day. Joe, on the shore near where they were, in the middle of the day, caught a nine-pound bass.”

RECORD CATCHES

INTERNATIONAL GAME FISH ASSN.’S WORLD RECORDS FOR LARGEMOUTH BASS

Line Weight Place Date 2 pound 11 lbs.0 oz. Lake Casitas, Calif. May 25, 1982 4 pound 14 lbs.4 oz. Lake Cachuma, Calif. May 8, 1985 8 pound 21 lbs.3 oz. Lake Casitas, Calif. March 4, 1980 12 pound 18 lbs.8 oz. Lake Isabella, Calif. Jan. 6, 1985 16 pound 16 lbs.12 oz. Chartuge Lake, Ga. March 27, 1976 20 pound 17 lbs.8 oz. Hurricane Lake, Fla. March 19, 1983

Line Fisherman 2 pound Frank T. Gasperov, Jr. 4 pound Clint Johanson 8 pound Ray Easley 12 pound Chris Moore 16 pound David R. Presley 20 pound Robert Dunsford