Hooked on Bass : Darin Tochihara, 15, Is One of More Successful Anglers at Lake Casitas

Fishing’s current conventional wisdom is that if you could go anywhere in the world to catch a marlin, your best bet would be Cabo San Lucas. For salmon, it’s Alaska. For big largemouth bass: Lake Casitas.

But there are no guarantees anywhere--and one day this month Darin Tochihara of Thousand Oaks proved it.

Tochihara has been one of the more successful anglers at Casitas. This year, he has caught 18 largemouth bass heavier than 10 pounds, topped by a 16-pounder. His secret: time.

“The trouble with most people is they’ll throw a lure for five minutes and not catch anything and quit,” Tochihara said. “They don’t realize it takes time.”

Darin has plenty of time. He is only 15. He won’t even need a fishing license until he turns 16 next March 24.

“Some of these fish are as old as I am,” he said.

Casitas, 12 miles inland from Ventura in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains, is the main drinking-water reservoir for the city of Ventura. The lake record for a largemouth bass is 21 pounds 3 ounces by Ray Easley of Fullerton in 1980, and Casitas has produced consistent catches from 10 to 15 pounds and beyond this year.

Most bass anglers believe that the next world record will come from Casitas, if it doesn’t come from Los Angeles County’s Castaic Lake first. Fishermen at both Southland lakes have come close to matching the record catch of a 22-4 largemouth at Georgia’s Lake Montgomery in 1932.

Most people aren’t as old as the record, but for Tochihara, a sophomore at Thousand Oaks High, age doesn’t count.

Darin’s father, Rod, was known as an expert fisherman and instructor long before his son, but Rod’s specialty is fly-fishing, primarily for trout. Darin has taught him a lot of what he knows about bass fishing.

Rod introduced Darin to fishing when his son was 7, “just old enough to utilize his hand-eye coordination. His first trout was caught on the East Fork of the Trinity with a salmon egg.”

Darin remembers: “I got it in close and the line broke, so I jumped in after it.”

Said Rod: “He developed a real love for bass fishing about three years ago. He has a natural ability to cast and has developed a lot of instinct. Fly-fishing for trout helped. When we’d go to the shows, he wasn’t afraid to go up and talk to the (Danny) Kadotas or the (Bob) Crupis. They liked seeing kids getting involved in fishing. . . . I’m sort of new to bass fishing. I learned from him.”

Said Darin: “I’d been going to the Sierra (for trout) and I wanted to try something different. I talked my dad into it.”

Rod: “One day we were fishing at Lake Piru. I was a diehard, so I took my fly rod out most of the time, but I wasn’t getting down to where the bass were. So I took one of my imitation crawdads and tied it up on my spinning outfit and basically caught my first bass. That got me hooked.”

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When the action peaked at Casitas in September, Rod said, “There were about 30% more fishermen out here. Trouble is, a lot of them went away disillusioned.”

They knew where to catch big bass--Casitas--but not how. One day this month, Darin tried to show a visitor how. Warned Randy King, who manages the marina at Casitas, “If you’re fishing with Darin, you’d better be ready for a long day.”

Casitas is about 3 1/2 miles long and 1 1/2 miles wide, with an island in the middle, and Darin fished all the best places, systematically.

“As big as this lake is and as many fish as there are in it, there are only about 12 spots that consistently hold fish,” he said. “We’ll try several spots 15 to 20 minutes each until settling into one. We’ll find fish sooner or later.”

Early-morning fog lay on the lake like a cozy gray comforter.

“Pretty nice day,” Darin said, assessing the conditions for fishing prospects.

With no windshield on the high-powered bass boat, the fog was a cold spray on the face as he left the marina and gunned the outboard to 40 m.p.h., the lake speed limit. A minute later, he stopped near the shore and was immediately out on the flat foredeck, casting one of the big TNT lures he and his father produce--one of several trout look-alike lures that have emerged this year.

Darin used an eight-foot, medium-heavy rod with 20-pound-test monofilament line, virtually a light saltwater spinning outfit. The lure weighs 3 1/2 ounces.

“Some people make the mistake of trying to throw this lure on eight-pound line,” he said.

A lot of lures are lost that way.

Darin let the lure sink a bit, then cranked it back in at just the right speed to give it a natural swimming motion.

Enticing no nibbles at the first spot, Darin moved on to “Deep Cat,” the cove where Coyote Creek enters the lake at its north end.

“This is where most of our big fish come from,” he said.

Does everybody know that?

“There aren’t too many secrets,” Darin said. “Besides, fishing is a sport for fun. You might as well help other people.”

But the bass weren’t having any today. Darin saw a few following his lure, curious, but no takers.

“These bass have seen every lure in the world,” Darin said. “They get smart after a while. Sometimes they’ll go cruising. When they’re cruising, they’re really hard to find.”

This day, they must have been cruising. Shortly after noon, Rod said, “Frankly, I’m surprised it’s as quiet as it is with this (weather) front. Usually that is ideal conditions.”

Noted Darin, who studies these things: “The best time is three days before a full moon, and this is four days after--not so good.”

Rod shrugged. “For all the good days we’ve had, we’ve had just as many bad days,” he said.

By 3 o’clock, he was resigned to one of the latter.

“Everybody gets skunked,” he said.

But in his youth, Darin said he has learned this much about fishing: “If you come enough and know what you’re doing, you’ll get something.”