I caught this monster Florida Strain Large mouth Bass on September 14, 2006, at a private pond in Ranch Santa Fe, CA. It weighed in at 21.96 lbs. on a hand held Berkley digital fish scale (unofficial). It measured at 32" long, by 26" Girth.
Enclosed are numerous pictures of my bass. I had one witness, his name is Greg Beare of Poway, CA.
I caught this monster off a 8" watermelon with black flake colored Kinami Plastic worm. Texas rigged on 12# test P-line. It took me for a 15 minute ride through Lilly pads and tulle's, when I finally landed him, I knew this was close to a world record fish. But since there was no IGF scale and it was caught at a private pond, I did not pursue the record.
The pond is located near Lake Hodges Dam. I thought that this would be a great photo for your section, and that many of your readers would be frothing at the mouth when they saw this fish.
I still can't believe I landed the fish of a lifetime. I've been fishing for 17 years now, I've been catching numerous bass within the 3-7 lb. range at my secret pond for the past 5 years, and knew that there was a lunker just waiting to be landed. Well I finally landed him, and now I can die in peace.
The 21.96 lbs. bass was released unharmed and was hooked cleanly and legit in the mouth.
Hopefully this is a picture that will draw more attention to your column and bring more exposure to San Diego's Big Bass haven! There was an article written about my bass in Sunday's edition of The San Diego Union Tribune 9/17.
HappyFishing!
Kenny Malone
