It was almost mid-day on Dec. 13 when Max Lee of Clovis, California “spotted” a big fish on his Garmin Livescope forward-facing sonar (FFS) unit. It was the jumbo size bass that Lee was hunting for that day.
“The fog was just starting to lift off the lake, and I was searching with my sonar for just one big fish,” Lee, age 31, tells Wired2fish. “I think the fog rising and the sun warming the water got the bass moving a bit. That’s when I saw it on my sonar – a fish suspended at 15-feet over a 30-foot-deep lake ditch.”
Lee says the fish was alone, with no bait nearby either. He made a long, accurate cast to the sonar blip with a homemade 6-inch minnow-shaped soft plastic lure fitted to a 3/16-ounce jig head. His Shimano spinning reel was spooled with 22-pound test braided line, with a 15-pound test fluorocarbon leader.
“I watched the lure sink to the fish, and when it was about eight feet from it, I slowed the lure’s drop speed,” said the pool maintenance technician. “As soon as it took the lure I loaded the rod and just tightened my line to hook it.”
Lee said the heavy fish fought mostly deep, boiling the surface just once and never jumped. He believes the cool 50-degree water diminished the bass’ battle, bringing the fish to his kayak in less than one minute. He used no net but grabbed the bass to land it.
“The fish were in a kind of funky mood, I think because the water was cold,” Lee explained. “As soon as I caught the bass my pal Joseph Tax fishing in another kayak came over and took some photos of me and the bass as I unhooked and released it.”
Lee also took photos of the bass in his kayak. He weighed it on his tournament hand-held scale at just over 16-pounds and measured it at 27 inches long.
“The bass was out of the water for less than one minute,” Lee explained. “I put her back and let her get oriented a bit, then she gave a tail kick and was gone just as healthy as she could be.”
Lee is understandably shy about revealing the name of the lake he was fishing. But he says it’s public water managed by the Corp of Engineers. The lake is heavily pressured by anglers, and it’s a very fertile, dingy-color waterway.
“I consider it my home lake, and I believe there are bigger bass living there,” Lee said. “I’m not having a replica mount made of the 16 pounder. I’m gonna wait to mount a 17-pound bass that I know is swimming around that lake somewhere.”
