By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor


Lou Ferrante's first visit to Bullards Bar Reservoir was somewhat embarrassing. The second provided the type of thrill that very few of the millions of anglers in America will ever experience.

The 74-year-old resident of Sparks, Nev. caught a gargantuan spotted bass from the Northern California impoundment while competing in a Great Basin Bassers tournament on Feb. 21. The fish weighed 11.20 pounds on the club's scale, then registered 10.95 several hours later on a certified scale at a market in Truckee, Calif. Either number easily eclipsed the all-tackle world record of 10.48 established by Powell Rods owner Keith Bryan at New Melones Reservoir (another NorCal foothill lake) just last year.

The Great Basin club, based in Reno, Nev., shipped its scale to International Game Fish Association (IGFA) headquarters in Florida for certification, and Ferrante said he was notified by a representative via a phone call on Tuesday that the device checked out. He said the representative told him the fish would go into the books at its original weight of nearly 11 1/4 pounds.

"I didn't think it was that big when I caught it," he said. "We had to put it in the livewell sideways and I thought it might've been 8 or 9 pounds.

"I didn't know what the record was and I wasn't even thinking about it. When a guy told me it was probably a new one, I just said, 'Ah, get out of here.'''

Fishing for Ghosts

Ferrante, a retired commercial charter pilot who later built a second career as a construction contractor in Southern California and Arizona, saw Bullards Bar for the first time in February 2014 when his club held its initial derby there. The lake's popularity has grown tremendously over the past several years as it's kicked out spots that have grown huge by gorging themselves on calorie-rich kokanee salmon.

Around the time of the Great Basin club's first visit, another local-level event there was won with a 40-pound stringer of spots. Each of the five fish, which were nearly as wide as they were long, checked in at right around 8 pounds.

Ferrante's initial experience on the lake was so uninspiring that, despite its reputation as a monster spot Mecca, he wasn't eager to go back. He'd just installed a couple of Lowrance Elite-7 graphs on his boat and they made their debut on that first visit.

"I (was partnered) with a friend that I fish with once in awhile and neither one of us had ever been there and we didn't know where to go," he said. "My friend said he'd call (California legend and Bass Fishing Hall of Famer) Mike Folkestad because he'd just been there the week before.

"Well, we get to our first spot and my gauge is just full of fish, but we're dropshotting in 40 to 50 feet and not getting a bite. The next place was the same thing. We went to four different points doing that."

He eventually determined that the meter was shipped from the factory in its "simulator" mode and was still on that setting. He and his partner had spent a great deal of time trying to catch fish that weren't actually there.

"After that, I didn't want to go back again."

One Cast Changed Everything

Ferrante's second trip to the lake last month resulted in a far more exciting day. He and partner Joe Inama caught only three keepers, but one of them was approximately 10 times the size of the other two, both of which barely crossed the 13-inch threshold for legality.

The duo, who were fishing up the North Yuba River where one of many waterfalls cascades into the lake, experienced a rare occurrence even before the monster bit.

"We were in Joe's boat and he threw out a bait and got a fish on, but it broke off," Ferrante said. "He told me to come to the front and run the boat while he went to the back to re-tie. I caught one and brought it in, and it was the same fish that had just broken Joe off. It still had his hook, the bait and the line in its mouth.

"That fish was about 12 1/2 inches so I threw it back and fishing for a few more minutes. Then I got my Senko hung up in some rocks and I broke it off. Something told me – I don't know if you want to call it intuition or God – to pick up my old Quantam rod with the grub tied on."

The big girl inhaled his Yamamoto single-tail grub (cinnamon/black flake) on his second cast.

"It was a solid pull and I had to loosen the drag on my reel. I thought at first that maybe it was a big catfish or something. Then when Joe got the net under it and I saw it roll, I couldn't believe it. I about fainted."

It was right around noon when the behemoth entered the livewell. It was the last keeper they caught, but they managed a 4th-place finish despite a sack that was two fish short of the maximum.

"I just wish we could've caught a couple more to fill out the limit," he said. "They wouldn't even have had to be all that big.

"As for the record, it'll probably get broken again soon. They're made to be broken."

Notable

> Ferrante caught the big fish on a 6-foot, medium-heavy Quantam spinning rod that he bought while living at Lake Havasu in the mid-1980s. "The only thing I use it for is throwing grubs," he said.

> The remainder of his gear consisted of an old Pflueger spinning reel, 8-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line and a 1/8-ounce darter head.