A Day Chasing the Spotted Bass Record
Tackling Bullards Bar with Jason Johnson
Originally, the plan was simple. I’d board a plane in Nashville early on New Year’s Day, fly to California to meet up with Cody Meyer and Jason Johnson, and spend a day chasing giant spotted bass on the famed Bullards Bar Reservoir, the place where nearly every supersized spotted bass has been caught in the last few years and where Meyer himself stroked a 10.80-pound pending world record fish a few weeks before.
That was the plan; the reality is much different. When I touch down in Sacramento, the gateway to northern California bass fishing for anyone from back east, Meyer reports in as “a little under the weather,” which turns out to be a bit of an understatement. Stricken with the flu, Meyer has little chance of leading the next day’s festivities. Even worse, snow in the forecast threatens to limit our opportunities.
The news hurts, but this is still California, and this is the time of year to catch giant spotted bass. And nothing can deaden the anticipation of having an opportunity to fish the lake where the world record spotted bass lives.
To the lake!
We sleep in a little the next morning, hoping that the day finds Meyer in better condition and that we can avoid slick road conditions at daybreak. Unfortunately, Meyer is still a no-go, having gotten nary a wink the night before and sick as ever. After some debate, and with equal parts trepidation and anticipation, Johnson and I decide to set out for the lake anyway.
As we climb and wind through the mountains, Johnson shares more about his experience with Bullards Bar. It’s the Georgia native’s second trip to the lake since he befriended Meyer on the FLW Tour when Johnson was fishing as a co-angler. His first trip was in 2014, and it was a memorable one.
“We came out, and the first day we zeroed,” he recalls. “The second day we zeroed, and then the weather came in and changed, and we had a 38-pound day. Then the next day we both caught our personal bests and had nearly a 43-pound day. That just lit a fire in me for this place and this northern California area.”
The duo ended up catching a slew of personal bests and a pair of 9-pounders, and it set up Johnson’s second trip this season. Before I arrived, he and Meyer had spent three days on Bullards and landed a handful of big ones, but never tapped into that same kind of epic day the pair enjoyed in 2014.
That outing was one to remember, and there have been many such days for the die-hards, including Meyer, in northern California who’ve been chasing big spotted bass over the last few seasons. Since Keith Bryan landed a 10.48-pound spotted bass from New Melones Reservoir in California in February 2014, the chase has been on for the world record spot. Following that fish, a cavalcade of giant spotted bass has poured out of Bullards Bar, which is located about four hours north of New Melones. Currently, Tim Little holds the IGFA record with a mammoth that weighed in at 10 pounds, 6 ounces and was caught from Bullards, but other fish of more than 11 pounds have been caught. Then there’s Meyer’s 10.8-pounder that he caught back in December.
In just a few hours of fishing, Meyer and FLW co-angler J.R. Wright pieced together an amazing 41.55-pound limit that included the pending world record.
“We started off right by the boat ramp, and in the first five minutes I ended up catching a 6.66 and an 8.35,” Meyer told me previously. “So, right off the bat the day was done. I could have quit and been happy.
“Then I ran around some and didn’t catch anything, and then I went to another spot where I’ll typically always get a big one or two. We pulled up and J.R. caught a 7.47, which is his biggest spotted bass, and shortly after I caught that 10.80.
“[After it bit] it took off for about 5 feet and then stopped. And I literally thought I was snagged for a couple seconds. Then it swam off, slowly by me, by the boat and out to deep water. It wasn’t really fighting. It was just pulling super hard with tons of weight on the end of the line. I remember telling J.R., ‘I don’t know what this is, man, but it literally feels like the biggest bass I’ve ever hooked in my entire life.’”
Meyer has spent most of his life targeting spotted bass across northern California. He cut his teeth fishing on places such as Shasta Lake, and has more trophies from top-10 tournament finishes out west than most would earn in two lifetimes. Though it inevitably takes some luck to catch big bass, it isn’t any accident that Meyer is one of the few to have caught a double-digit spotted bass.
“I’ve been fishing this place for about 12 years,” Meyer says of Bullards Bar. “Ten years ago you’d see a lot of 3-pounders, then a lot of 4-pounders, then 5-pounders. Up ’til that point you never really thought about a world record, but the last couple years they’ve been getting bigger and bigger, so the last couple years it’s definitely been possible.
“Right now the spotted bass are bigger than they’ve ever been in the history of spotted bass. In this lake, because of the kokanee [landlocked sockeye salmon] that they eat, they grow about a pound a year. So no one really knows how big they can get. Is 11 pounds, 12 pounds, 13 pounds where they top out?”
Meyer’s availability to target big spots has lessened in recent years since he started fishing the Tour, which kicks off toward the tail end of the prime window each season, but everything that he and Johnson have told me about big spots has me amped for my first crack at them.
When we arrive at the Dark Day ramp on Bullards, my insides light up with that familiar pre-fishing anticipation that comes with seeing the water for the first time. With just one other truck in the parking lot, it looks like the bad weather and the end of the holiday break have effectively scared everybody off.
Regardless, we peel the cover off the boat and load a few rods. Though the ramp is partially protected from the wind, just getting ready to go is a chilly affair, and it’s obviously going to be a cold and nasty day – potentially the kind of day big spotted bass love. When I walk down the ramp after parking the truck, I think to myself that this is a perfect day to catch a giant.
Getting started
The first spot we pull up on is a pretty nothing-looking point – a few stumps seemingly high and dry on the reddish bank that makes up so much of the lake. The point tops out in about 20 feet, with the sides dropping off into 40 feet or more. Johnson pulls out a wacky rig and drops the trolling motor, then fires a short cast ahead of the boat and well off the bank. As we settle in, I pause to rig a GoPro while my bait rests on the bottom.
All discombobulated, a jolt of panic courses through me when I feel a bite with one hand on the rod and one on the camera. Miraculously, I pause for a second and am able to untangle the braid around the tip of my rod with just a swish of the tip. When I set the hook, the fish is there, and I quickly reel up the most exciting 12-incher I’ve ever caught.
We fish on, and each time Johnson marks a bass on sonar, I run to the bow hoping to look at a “giant blob” on the screen that is a trophy spotted bass. I finally see a big one bubble up on the console graph. I drop the bait down and watch it streak toward the bottom. The bass rises up to meet it. I stop the bait short and start shaking it, waiting for the “tick” of a lifetime. It never comes. The fish retreats back toward the bottom. I finally breathe again and drop my bait down with the bass, but the fish disappears.
A few minutes later on the same spot, after saturating the deeper parts with our baits, Johnson slides the boat up a little shallower and we suddenly start marking big ones. Unfortunately, it’s another no-go. We can see them on the sonar but can’t force a bite with finesse. Changing gears, a Strike King 10XD slung across the point fails to elicit a strike.
Meyer’s honey hole
Our next stop is the point where Meyer landed the 10.80-pound spot that set the Internet on fire at the end of 2016. My anticipation is high when we arrive. The point has been beaten by the wind, and the weather has changed from some light sleet to a healthy mix of rain and snow. It’s perfect spotted bass weather.
Meyer seems to have a knack for epic days on Bullards, and the 10.80 he caught was a cap on what had already been a day to remember in which he and J.R. Wright landed more than 40 pounds of spotted bass. Fishing this very spot in early December, Meyer and Wright caught a 7-pounder, a 10-pounder and an 8-pounder in the span of a few casts.
This place was magic for Meyer on that day, but not for us. After 20 minutes or so without a bite in whipping wind and freezing precipitation we leave and head to another long point farther up the North Yuba River.
Finishing the day out
Up on the next spot, we run into more marks than anywhere else. Though we each catch a fish, including a 3-pounder for me, we never connect with one of the giant spots we know are looking at our baits.
Even though the fishing is beginning to look like a bit of a bust, it’s impossible to be distracted for even a minute.
“There are not many people that can say for sure they fished a lake with a world record in it,” says Johnson. “It’s a totally different experience. Every cast you’re alert, and anytime you hit something on the bottom your heart rate goes up. You get a bite and set the hook, and you don’t know if it’s a 12-incher or a 10-pounder. You don’t know, and that anticipation for what the next bite is and what it can be is pretty unreal.”
That anticipation climbs even higher at our next stop, which is reportedly the same waterfall where Paul Bailey caught an 11-pound spotted bass back in 2015. We slide into the spot quietly and finesse the heck out of it. Nothing. Per Johnson, fishing the waterfalls that tumble into the lake is a pretty well-known pattern, and he figures that even though there are only a handful of boats on the water, the spot has probably been fished a few times already today.
After running two more points with no bites to complete the day, we head to the ramp and put it on the trailer. Both Johnson and I have red-eye flights to catch that night, and the weather shows no signs of getting better. So instead of fishing it out until dark, we drive back through the mountains and the snow in full daylight conditions.
This trip to the West is more about capturing the story than actually catching a big spot, but it’s still a slight disappointment not to see one in person. Even so, it’s a trip that most anglers will never get the chance to make, and it’s special to fish a lake with guaranteed records swimming just underneath your feet and possibly looking at your bait. I’d love to go back sometime, and so would Johnson. In fact, he’s already planning next year’s trip when he and Meyer will take yet another shot at the fish of a lifetime.