California seems to be a good place for cults. There are the ever-present Moonies and Hare Krishnas, and lots of cultishness has always surrounded hard-core L.A. rock bands. Even the cloistered Silicon Valley computer software brains form a kind of cult. Then there is the Southern California Big Bass Cult. It all began, roughly, with the introduction of Florida-strain largemouth bass to Southern California waters. The first fish were brought to San Diego County in 1959, and the offspring of these fish were planted in San Diego and Riverside counties throughout the 1960s and early ’70s. The Florida-strain bass grew bigger than the northern-strain fish that were already in Southern California lakes, and lake records started toppling all over the region. In 1973, Dave Zimmerlee caught the first fish over 20 pounds ever in California: a 20-pound, 15-ounce fish from Lake Miramar. By this time, nearly every major reservoir in the area held the Florida-strain fish, and most anglers thought it was only a matter of time before the world record fell.
Interestingly, another near-record was not taken until March 4, 1991, when Mike Arujo landed a 21-pound, 12-ounce fish on Lake Castaic—eight ounces off George Perry’s world record. Just seven days later, Bob Crupi caught his 22-pound, ½-ounce monster in Lake Castaic. It seemed that the Holy Grail of bass fishing was again within reach. Fishermen throughout Southern California, and from around the state, started focusing just on trophy fish and developing techniques to catch them.
With each big fish, there were more converts, even pilgrims: Porter Hall, a very successful Florida bass man, joined the cult in 1991, when he moved from Florida to Southern California for the sake of pursuing record bass after he read about the big fish in Lake Castaic. He eventually landed an 18-pound, 5-ounce largemouth on Lake Casitas. Paul Duclos’s unofficial 24-pound fish, caught in 1997, furthered the big bass mystique (“The Biggest Bass of All Time?” story was published in the June 1997 issue of Outdoor Life).
Duclos was, and is, a dedicated catch-and-release angler—he let the fish go without an official weighing. Yet that individual fish superheated the devout belief that the record fish, or perhaps more than one record fish, exists. Now, in the decade after the biggest fish, the cult continues to change as veterans reexamine their faith and new disciples rise within a self-contained world shaped by fervent fishing.
“Bass have given me life. If you have something like bass fishing, you keep your perspective straight,” says Bill Murphy, the 61-year-old guru of California bassing. His 1992 book, In Pursuit of Giant Bass, is a capstone text about trophy-bass techniques. Murphy’s biggest was a 17½-pounder, and he figures he has caught about 10 bass over 10 pounds every year for the past 40 years—that’s two tons of bass, a near-Biblical accomplishment.
Bob Crupi is also an angler sure to be canonized, as he is the only person in recorded angling history to have caught two bass over 20 pounds: the 22-pounder already mentioned, and a 21-pound, ½-ounce fish caught in March 1990, also in Lake Castaic. Yet Crupi has his reservations about the big fish these days. “There just aren’t that many trophy bass anymore,” he says, referring to the huge bass he once caught in numbers.
Yet the California faithful continue to fish. Mike Long is among them.
Long fishes more than 200 days a year and has caught more than 200 bass over the 10-pound mark. He has caught three bass over 17 pounds from his home water, Lake Poway, including the lake-record 17½-pounder. He set the records at Lake Sutherland and Lake Mission Viejo this spring and set the Lake Cuyamaca record in June 1999. His best is a 17-pound, 15-ounce fish from Lake Murray in March 1999—he was sight-casting to a pair of huge bass and the smaller fish hit.
“My goals this year are to make the cover of Western Outdoor News and to catch a 20-plus-pounder,” Long says. “I haven’t done either…yet.” This is a single-minded state similar to that of a champion golfer or Presidential candidate—an act of supreme focus and ego fueled by the anticipation of a spiritual satisfaction matched by little else. And that’s a beautiful thing.
Veteran bass angler Butch Brown agrees. “There’s a lot of satisfaction in catching an old, old bass that has been in there a long time, and maybe having the chance of catching a 20-plus-pounder—that’s something really special,” Brown says. “That’s why I keep going out.”
And while any other cult gets by on personalities, rules and empty promises, the California big-bass cult relies on anglers themselves and the things they do—namely, catch big fish. Troy Folkestad, son of bass pro Mike Folkestad, admits that his father and Bill Murphy were his childhood heroes—an idolization based upon achievement. Troy now guides for big bass on waters throughout Southern California. He confesses to having an “addictive personality” and says, “More than anything, I’d like to catch the world-record largemouth.” Like forefathers, like sons.
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Greg Glogow is a 16-year-old under the spell—he’s on the water almost every day after school, usually at Lake Castaic. His biggest bass is a 13-pound, 10-ounce fish from the lower lake, and he has landed 11 bass over 10 pounds. “I’d really like a 23- or 24-pounder. I know I’m going to get it,” he says. Glogow laughs when you ask him about other kinds of romance. “Girls took up too much of my fishing time. Girls are fun, but 10-pounders are more fun,” he says, not entirely in jest. That’s the nature of a trophy-fish disciple—self-denial combined with all-or-nothing commitment. But is Bob Crupi right—are the big bass waning? How long can this legion of cultists go on? Larry Bottroff, biologist for San Diego City Lakes, says, “The world record is still [in these lakes]. But the chances of catching it are small.” Duclos’s behemoth was released four years ago, so one of the biggest fish of all still swims. It can’t be alone.