Sunday morning when I went out to the driveway to pick up the paper, I saw we out here in the hinterlands were under a thick marine cloud layer including drizzle, not very exciting for your typical sun-worshiping Southern Californian but for the atypical me it was just what I had been waiting for the past two weeks.  You know how the weather has been hot for a while?  Well, that warms up our local lakes and reservoirs, which awakens the largemouth out of their winter doldrums and into the spring spawn.  What the cloud cover does is keep the fish up close to shore longer throughout the day before they head back down to deep water to avoid the Sun’s rays after burn-off.

    Feeling this, I went into good boy mode; I did all my yard work, straightened out the garage, washed the car, cooked dinner then organized and packed all my freshwater gear for today’s destination, Diamond Valley Lake near Hemet.

    Since this year’s early switch to daylight time I figured they probably wouldn’t open the gates until 06:30, so it was good that I lined up at six to be only third in the queue to be let in.  By the time they cracked’er open, ten other truck-loads of anglers arrived behind me.  This place is handy too, only 45 minutes from home.  And how gigantic?  It holds more water than Sinner, Perris, Silverwood, Castaic and Pyramid lakes combined.

    At the trailhead the sight of rippling water under thick skies was motivating.  They have three miles open for shore fishing but I only walk two, which puts me on the third point.  I like that spot because on one side there is a deep drop-off and the other a gentler sloping cove.  Plus it sticks far out into the lake’s main body where the fish will pass by while traveling from cove to cove.

    First thing is to toss out a wad of power bait on a #18 treble hook and two-pound leader away from where I will cast for bass.  While that is soaking with a bell attached to the rod, out comes the big guns in the form of my 15# Ambassadeur baitcasting reel on the 8’ calico rod to be used to launch the rubber Castaic rainbow trout.  I probably made a result-less 40 fan casts with that before losing it to the rocks.

    Next to be used was the Storm WildEye Sunfish.  I gave it a shot but I knew the swimbaits likely wouldn’t work today since I saw no bluegill nor shad hanging around and zero surface breaks by feeding bass.  After 30 casts that lure too was lost to a snag.

    If nothing is nailing the swimbaits you have to switch to finesse.  In this case I used a Carolina rigged four-inch purple taper-tail Power Worm anchored down with a ½ oz egg sinker.  Throughout history I have used this lure with a bullet weight slid right onto the worm with much success but for the past ten-or-so years I have been reading all the testimonials about how well the Carolina rig works.  The only change in the two styles is that instead of the weight touching the worm, it is held four feet up the line by a keeper or a swivel.

    I have used the Carolina a few times without success... until today.  I swear my first cast I slowly jerk it in from the deep, up to about ten feet from my feet and I feel the distinctive tap-tap of a bass sucking it up.  I gave it a little slack, the line goes out, I rear back and ZZzZZzZZz there goes the drag on my 12# Shimano Aero spinning reel.  YEAH, my first largemouth hook-up in 2 years that weighed in at three pounds four ounces (3-4).

    From that point I worked the worm casting here and there while walking to the next point not far away.  With not another bite, I reeled in the Power Bait, packed up and headed over to the next cove.

    The lake level is 20 feet down providing many a dead shrub to be used as a rod rack  for the soaking of the trout bait.  I flipped the worm here and there, hooking another bass that felt pretty big but turned out to be only two pounds.  That’s the deal at this lake, the bass are wily fighters.  Compared to other impoundments they feel twice as big.  Also, at other places, the bass can taste muddy.  Here they taste pure and sweet, so I always keep one or two big ones.

    A few casts later I felt another tap-tap about fifteen feet out.  I lowered the rod tip to slacken the line, it tore out, I swung to set the hook and ZZzZZzZZz there went my drag again.  This time it felt REALLY BIG, like it swam right for a snag I couldn’t budge.  Ah crap, that’s the problem with the relatively light line.  Once they get stuck it’s all over, snap!  Oops, ZZzZZzZZz there he goes again, it wasn’t stuck after all, it was just sitting there on the bottom feeling like I hooked a rock.  It popped its head out of the water a twice and from my vantage it looked to be five or six pounds.  I played it very gently, guiding it in and out of a few stick-ups and up to shore, from where I raised it up by its lower jaw.  On the Normark scale it registered 5-2, my biggest largemouth bass since the 6-5 I caught from Eastman Lake back in 1986.

    I slid that one into the bag and walked about twenty feet over.  It wasn’t three casts later I hooked another two-pounder.  After that, twenty more casts were made in and around the same 100 feet of shore and with no bites had I packed up and worked a few spots on the hike back to the next cove.

    There I saw another shore angler 200 feet over reeling one in.  I dropped my stuff and cast out the Carolina worm.  After five casts another tap-tap and a hook-up.  Again, it felt huge, pulling drag then holding its ground.  It was another two-pounder feeling like a monster, a tackle monster anyway.  Adorning its maxilla were two broken off hooks, one complete with a leader and swivel and a series of other hole scars on it’s mandible, quite the gauge to the power of the Diamond Valley Lake bass.

    At noon the sky was still grey, there might have been a few more fish to catch but I was already half way back to the parking lot and you could see the shore from here on had been hit quite hard lately.  I was hoping for a couple trout to mix with the bass but was nonetheless happy with what I already caught.  It was the first time in recent memory I have gone through a whole package of plastic worms.

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