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43 °F Forecast | Road Cams Sunday, October 10, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Rogue Valley's Finest EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend September 23, 2004 Bill White caught this 7 pound, 1 ounce smallmouth bass Friday at Lost Creek Lake while using a short Fiberglas rod. White makes big splash with ‘kiddy’ pole Outdoors By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune After a few hours casting his regular rod Friday for bass in Lost Creek Lake, Bill White decided not to fight the tendinitis in his elbow any longer. So the 58-year-old Medford man reached for the other rod he keeps in his bass boat — a 4½ -foot baby-blue Fiberglas rod with a closed-face reel, something you’d give a 5 year old for Christmas. "It’s just, really, nothing more than a ‘kiddy’ pole," White says. "That’s the one I use when my arm gets sore because it’s so light. So I cast that kiddy pole and, well, you know how it goes ..." It goes precisely like this — man casting kiddy pole hooks the largest smallmouth bass ever caught at Lost Creek Lake, a fat and sassy bass that’s a whisker under the Oregon state record. White’s smallmouth weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces — three ounces shy of the record bass caught in 2000 by fly-fishermen Kevin Silver in Henry Hagg Lake, which is considered Oregon’s smallmouth Mecca. Advertisement "At this time of year, they’re a little thin," White says. "If it had eggs in it, it would have been over 8 pounds. It’s nice to know this lake can produce fish like this." Coming up three ounces shy of the record doesn’t earn White much more than a footnote in Oregon’s growing infatuation with warmwater fish. Yet it does suggest that ever-changing Lost Creek Lake is changing again. This time, it’s for the better. Originally rick with largemouth bass, the reservoir smallmouth illegally stocked there in the early 1990s. The smallmouth exploded and overran the lake, causing the largemouth population to crash and replacing it with thousands of smaller smallmouth. But White’s big bass may indicate the lake’s bass population has self-corrected, creating a lake with fewer, but bigger, fish. "Most of the bass there are pretty small, but bass fisherman say they’re starting to catch some bigger ones," says David Haight, a fisheries biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "It may indicate that the population is dropping back and the (fish) sizes are increasing." Whatever conditions or factors that made White’s bass grow to 22 inches long and 17 inches around, White was happy and surprised he caught it. Fishing with retired dentist Lee Hayes of Medford, White caught a few of the smaller smallmouth in coves at the lake’s lower, and deeper, end near Lost Creek dam. But the sore arm led him to grab the light rod with 8-pound-test line about 9 a.m. The boat’s bow was pointed into a cove, and White cast his crankbait straight toward shore. The bass munched the lure and darted toward the boat. "He was right in front of the boat when he flashed and I could tell he was a huge fish," White says. "I thought, ‘oh, no, I have a largemouth.’" The bass dashed into deep water, as big fish often do. It danced and zigged, coming to the surface once. The bass sprinted away from White six times. He even handed his rod briefly to Hayes while he rested. With the baby-blue rod in hand again, White finally dragged the bass to the boat. Hayes slipped the net beneath it. The battle was over. Then the weirdness began. With no scale on board, White placed the bass in his live well and motored around the lake looking for one. "There were seven other boats on the lake," White says, "and the seventh had a scale." White retrieved the bass, only to discover the live well was just a well. It had mysteriously drained while they were out scale-searching. The bass was dead. The scale said 6½ pounds. Nothing spectacular. They fished a few more hours, then paraded the bass into Pat’s Hand-Tied Flies near Trail. There, the scale said 7 pounds 11 ounces. "That’s when I thought, hey, this could be a state record," he says. The men returned to Medford, then had the bass weighed on a meat scale at an Albertson’s market. It said 7 pounds, 11 ounces as well. A quick search through the Internet revealed his was just shy of the record. "Oh, well," White says. "It still was all pretty exciting." The great fish was laid to rest, whole, in White’s freezer. He paraded the pictures around the west Medford Bi-Mart store where he works in the sporting-goods department. On his next day off, you know where he’s going, baby-blue kiddy rod and all. "I don’t think that was the only big smallmouth bass in that lake," White says. "There has to be more." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities