Miracle at
Otay Lake
By Michael Seewald

Written Oct. 22nd, 2002

It was the worst time of year to fish the lakes, but I went to my old stomping grounds in Chula Vista, in south San Diego county, to fish Lake Otay anyway.  While there, a miracle happened, and this is my fish story... I mean, this is my story.

It was really weird, and it all started at the Fairbanks Ranch golf course. While talking with a childhood friend, Dr. Russ Dunnum, now also a collector, at a fundraiser I was donating to, we reminisced about the 'good old days'.  He brought up the fact that our old fishing hole, Otay Lake, now has houses built all the way to the lakes edge.  So, in the beginning of the summer of 2002, with just the mentioning of 'Otay Lake', I felt an old passion from my youth, FISHING, start to stir!  It was not long before it was so strong I could think of nothing else.

But, before heading out for the first time I had to check out my 30 year old gear. I picked up my old pole with my trusty Mitchell spinning reel on it.  After two cranks of the handle it fell off.  I looked at the metal handle dangling in my hand and saw the plastic pieces on the ground that the handle used to fit into.  I then realized plastic must have less than a 30 year life span.  It needed replacement, and so I was off to my favorite local fishing supply store, Sears. 

What, they no longer carry fishing gear anymore? Boy, how things have changed.  I then went to my 'new' favorite fishing suply store, Wal-Mart (well, also the Sports Authority now).  There, after getting sticker shock on the price of fishing gear nowadays, I walked out the proud owner of a brand new Mitchell reel... along with new line, new style lures, and an even more urgent need to get the line wet.

August 7th, 2002

With a mix of new and old gear I took a trip out to 'Otay' on my next day off, Wednesday. Note: this is the shorter name that my six younger brothers and I got used to calling it as kids (every weekend we used to bike the eight miles out from our home, which was on the 'edge' of town back then, through the empty rolling canyons along Telegraph Canyon Road.  Russ was right, it is now chock-full of houses up to the lakes edge- YUCK).  My first trip out

She rowed the boat while I both cast here and there and 'coached her' from going in constant circles, which happened more often than not. 

 was made at mid-day, and as usual it was about 90+ degrees out there, cloudless and dry.  Rattlesnake weather. While driving the two miles along the lake to get to the concession stand I was overwhelmed by the fact that reeds now infested the edges of the lake.  It looked virtually impossible to fish the shore, like we used to do, by just walking around it. 

Although I brought the gear, I was not sure if I wanted to fish in the middle of the summer, when fishing is usually at it's worst.  The fish go real deep, which makes it tough to catch them. Plus, the heat makes it miserable to be out there.  But, I met a nice older black man who gave me some pointers on the lakes conditions nowadays... and he was nice enough to give me his rental boat and permits, as he was leaving the lake early anyway!  So, although it was too hot to go out my enthusiasm got the best of me and I was soon rowing out along the shore practicing my casting, which was also rusty.  I left the lake at dusk, fishless but excited, as I had expected. 

August 14th, 2002

The lake is open Wednesdays and weekends, but Valerie and I both have to work weekends usually, so the next Wednesday I took Valerie out with me to show her how great this 'fishing thing' was.  She rowed the boat while I both cast here and there and 'coached her' from going in constant circles, which happened more often than not.  (By the third time out she was a pro, albeit a tired one.  And was also easily talked into investing in a trolling motor.) 

We weren't 15 minutes into the day when Bam, a nice 2+ pounder hit my old Rapala lure.  I fought him in like an old pro, showed him off to Valerie and, without much thought, slipped him right back into the dark green water.  Valerie screamed "What are you doing?". 

I told them that for me heaven would be having Jesus fishing in the boat with me, and on every cast we would catch a 'lunker' bass.

I told her I thought he would be much smaller than the others I would hook up later, so we would not need him.  Uh-huh. In retrospect, I agree he sure was a lot bigger than the trout you get at the grocery store that cost us about five bucks apiece! She had to open up the gallery at 10 am., so I drove her back (60 miles round trip) and returned later in the afternoon, after the 95 degree heat of mid-day had passed, to finish the day by myself. 

What heaven would be like? This question came up at our 'home fellowship' after this, my second time out. (Home fellowship, or 'small groups' as it's called, are where many Christians meet mid-week to go over the pastors message from the previous Sunday at someone's home.  We also pray for each others needs as well as friends that might need it, sing praise songs and then have dessert and coffee afterwards).  I told them that for me heaven would be having Jesus fishing in the boat with me, and on every cast we would catch a 'lunker' bass (that's what you call a really big bass)!!!

Miracle day August 21st, 2002

Well, the next time out I went on my own again, and reached the lake by 5:30 am.  (It's a 45 minute drive from Del Mar, so you know I have the 'bug' bad as I get up early for nothing... ever!  Well, maybe a photo once in China, but that was it.)  It was STILL DARK and the bass where starting to wake up and feed on the small shad on the lakes surface, making those loud splashing noises that give fishermen chills of excitement.  Five fishermen waited anxiously in line in front of me.  The lake attendants, man and his wife, live in a trailer behind the concession stand. 

By 6:05 I was already trolling an old 'rebel' lure and got hooked up at 6:10, just 100 feet from the dock.

(This is new since I went there before, and not the same charm the old stand had.)  We waited for them to get out of bed and sell us the tickets that would make it legal to fish, and to rent boats if needed, which in my case it was.  They opened the sales window at 5:45 to mutterings from the first fellow that it was almost noon and that the fish had probable stopped biting!  The attendant reminded him that the lake does not 'officially' open until 6 and he should be happy that he got it 15 minutes early.  I got my full day rental row boat ($12.00 for the day) and my daily permit -$5.00, and ran down to the boat dock and loaded up my boat. 

By 6:05 I was already trolling an old 'rebel' lure and got hooked up at 6:10, just 100 feet from the dock.  I lost him but cast right back out and hooked up with, maybe, the same fish.  After a few minutes I landed him, and dug out a stringer -a special 6 foot long nylon line to put your fish on-  and then put him in the water to keep him alive under the boat.  I went back to fishing, feeling really good that I already had one. 

By 10 a.m., the sun was already relentless and I had rowed across the lake to the dam area (see photo and see dam located behind my left shoulder).  Actually, the wind was up and it was more of a 'blown across the lake' effect that got me over there.  I still had only one bass on the stringer but had lost a really big one on a new salt water lure I had purchased.  It looked like a rubber shad and I knew he would be a bass killer.  (This is the same lure I gave Valerie to use that she caught her 'first ever' bass on later in the month, see article that follows).  Another one was slightly smaller than the one I had caught previously and I tossed him back to grow some more, he was about a two pounder. 

After letting the top water lure float there for a few seconds I twitched it, supposedly making it look like an injured fish, and immediately a large bass attacked it from below.

I noticed a dark patch in the water along and in front of the reeds, so I cast the Rebel lure, which looks like a long, thin shiny fish, just

above the dark area.  (I found that dark areas are boulders or weed beds, an area a bass loves to hide in, for coolness sake in the summer, and for an ambushing location for unsuspecting minnows, crawfish, etc.).  After letting the top water lure float there for a few seconds I twitched it, supposedly making it look like an injured fish, and immediately a large bass attacked it from below.  I lunged back, set the hook, and prayed like crazy that the Lord would keep it on the line.  After a few minutes I landed another nice size fish, even bigger than the first.  I kept fishing until the heat was too much and rowed back to the dock and took a break. 

I weighed the two fish at the docks scales and found the first was a 3+ pounder, the second, at 17" or 18", was a 4+.  Found a place for lunch a few miles back towards downtown Chula Vista and then tried to take a nap under some eucalyptus trees in my van back at the hot lake.  That not working too well after a couple of hours of chasing a pesky fly off my face, I hit the lake again around 5 pm.

No sooner out than I tied into another large bass about 100 yards from the boat dock.  It was another 16", 3+ pounder.  I could not believe how blessed I was becoming.  I started to pray that I would actually get my 'limit', (5 bass is the legal limit, nothing allowed to be kept under 12") which was my prayer in the beginning of the day anyway, and one I really expected the Lord to answer.  I caught another 2+ pounder and tossed him back, and then  I caught another 4+ pounder an hour later on the twitch method casting towards the middle of the lake, in deep water.  But this bass hit it less than two seconds after it landed, before it was twitched.  Three guys in a boat not too far away kept talking among themselves about how I was so lucky and wondered what my secret bait was.   (The lake makes sounds travel so well you think someone talking a mile away is only 50 feet away.)  So now I had four nice size fish and had tossed two smaller ones back.   Officially was one thing, but ethically was another on the limit. 

The three guys that took my picture said they had fished there all day and had caught nothing.

I wanted another keeper to count it an 'official official' day.  Dusk was happening and I rowed over to the three guys in their boat and asked them if they would take a picture of me and my four fish while the light was nice.  They marveled at them and I rowed back and returned the boat.  I realized I had 10 minutes of light left.

I went along the lakes edge just 100 ft. from the dock, one of the only places left that I could fish, and tossed the lure. Something hit it I threw it immediately.  I cast again, and another hit it hard.  I pulled him in over a growth of weeds and landed another 3+ pounder.  I knew I had enough fish for quite a few meals and let him go.  (Another fisherman just to my side said "Hey, I would have kept him, why didn't you give him to me?")

Click photo to enlarge. 

Photo copyright Valerie Seewald
 

I did not answer him.  He obviously had never heard of 'catch and release'.  And if you don't need him, or if you want to come back and catch him when he has grown into a 10+ pound lunker, then you need to put him back.

The miracle of catching my limit during the hardest months to do so was something I will never forget.  In all of my youth of hundreds of days fishing Otay I had never had such a day, not even on the nice overcast days. Half of all days netted nothing, the other half maybe one or two, three at the most- and those were mostly two pounders.  Bass fishing is not easy, like all of the other types available there, i.e. bluegill, crappie, catfish, etc., but it is the most exciting.  (The three guys that took my picture said they had fished there all day and had caught nothing.  When asking what I had caught mine on I showed them.  They replied they were all going to Wal-Mart to get that lure that very night?!). 

Last week (10.16.02) I went out again just for a two and a half hour slot, at dusk.  Just before going out I noticed a bass tournament was just wrapping up.  I asked the 15 men how big was the winning fish.  They said 2 -1/4 pounds.  2 -1/4 POUNDS!!!  Heck, I was throwing those back.  And these guys have those $30,000 bass boats with 200 horsepower motors that basically hydroplane across the 5 mile lake from end to end in 8.7 seconds!

Valerie's First Bass

Valerie caught her first bass, a nice 16", 2+ pound Florida largemouth, on her third day trying.  She had thrown and caught her crank bait for the ump-teenth time into the tullies, so I had her cast towards the middle of the lake to practice stopping the lure from going it's full distance by using her hand as a type of brake on the line.  While she was practicing a bass tore into her lure and immediately jumped for her to see.  She was so excited while playing the fish, and even more so after landing it.  She yelled, only after seeing it jump, "I think I've got one".  She did not know what to expect or how it would feel.

Valerie with her first bass- 17". 
Otay Lake, Chula Vista, California,
6:15 pm., Sept. 18th, 2002

(On a shad type looking soft plastic lure.)

Click to enlarge.

A fisher-woman is born!

 
Click to enlarge.
Valerie and her first bass. 

Update 6.11.03.

Christmas At
Martinez Lake

A Colorado River Fishing Adventure

12.27.'02
By Michael Seewald


click to enlarge.

Valerie and I went to one of my old 'fishing holes' and a home away from home in my youth, for the recent holidays.  The lake sits some 30 miles north east from Yuma, Arizona.  Yuma is usually 110 degrees in the shade, or 40 below in the sun, depending if your there in the dead of summer or the dead of winter.  We were there in the dead of winter.  We had reserved a hotel room there for three nights, and left Christmas eve around 2 pm for the, as I remembered, three hour drive.  We arrived there at about 9 p.m., after getting lost for a couple of hours in a very dark desert.  (It had been some 25 years since I was there last, and things -roads, landmarks, memory,- had changed). 

When we got there the office was already closed, being Christmas eve and all. Luckily, there was a note that sent latecomers to the bar.  We walked up the hill and found it closed up tighter that a drum.  I decided to walk around the trailer park, which is mostly what the place is, a see if we could find someone who knew anyone that ran the place.  The first man we found ended up being the assistant chef! He opened up the cantina for us and retrieved the room key.  We were the only ones staying in the small motel, and we excitedly hit the sack after reading up on bass fishing (at least I did, Valerie had a mystery book) and getting
the room warmed up from the space heater.

The next day we found that all was closed, although we were told we could rent a boat when we had called and booked the motel reservations. 

We then decided to celebrate Christmas by driving back to Yuma, and after getting a late and tasty steak and eggs breakfast at Tyler's Texas Bar-B-Q, we drove around looking for a theater that might have the new Lord of the Rings movie on, The Two Towers. 

At about 2 pm we finally found their third movie theatre and was showing our movie.  It was located in the old city center, by the old Yuma Territorial Prison.  But, we had to kill a few hours as all showings before 6 pm were sold out!  Yuma has about two main streets, about two miles long each.  We decided since nothing was probably open that we would drive along and memorize the names of the businesses on one side of the street, but after 9 or 10 stores the fun wore off and it became work.  (Mary Elizabeth Post School, Montoya Insurance strip mall, Chevron gas station, Shell, Little Caesar's Pizza, etc.)  We decided to search for stores that might be open, Longs, etc., and find some after Christmas bargains. 

The first place we saw was a liquor store.  Figuring it was better than nothing we stopped and found it had been transformed into a cheap sporting goods store, cool.  We drove on and then found a grand opening of a new food store.  Wow.  And later still, surprisingly, a Walgreen's store.  Valerie was in hog heaven, and after 5 minutes I was bored enough that I decided to help the store by replacing all of the jumbled magazine racks back into proper order, and picked up dozens of subscription cards laying on the ground.

They eventually closed the store on us, and as we drove down the street at 4:55 looking for anything else, figuring we had one more hour, I drove by a time/ temperature sign that read 5:55 pm.  But how could that be?  Oh yeah, the one hour time zone change.  We had forgot about it, and I figured two days without changing it would not be problem.  Now we were late, unless I could zip two miles through town without hitting all 10 traffic lights.  We got there at 6:05.  I had enough foresight to get permission from the attendant, as we flew past, to switch to a later showing if we could not find a decent seat...no fun breaking necks in the front row.  Sure enough, after entering the theatre, nothing available but front row, so we came back out and traded tickets for the 7 pm. showing.  Great, another hour to kill.  The good thing was we were the first in line for it.  Eventually we saw the three hour movie from our choice of seats in another sold out theatre.  What a great movie.

We got back to Martinez about midnight and to bed after 1 am.  (After opening up all of my new Christmas fishing gear and finding room to store it in the new giant tackle box I now owned).  The next morning we slept in, as the boat rental shop did not open until 9 am.  We went there about 10 am and found rentals were $50 for full day, and that was considered 9 am till 4 pm.  They said if we wanted we could get the half day rate- $30, (noon to 4 pm).   

So off to the cantina to get a burger for breakfast. (On weekdays they don't open till 11 am and don't serve breakfast).  We greeted the elderly waitress with our happy smiles and friendly small talk, asking how her Christmas went.  She was as excited and happy as a fisherman with no bait at a dried up lake.  We found out burgers did not taste as good served from un-happy waitresses.  Being that it's over a 1/2 hour drive to the outskirts of Yuma, the next closest place, she probably figured we had nowhere else to go, which was partially true, and it did not matter how she behaved.  But she figured wrong and we decided to take meals, drive and all, in Yuma from then on.

As we rented the boat the young lady working there called her boss and informed them that had two lives ones.  They told her to have us get it back by 3:30 pm, instead of 4 pm (and to levy a $20 fine if we were late by 10 minutes)  Wow!  Are times tough or what?  So we rented it and hurriedly loaded up the boat and set off. We worked the lake and the rivers edges for a couple of hours.  I decided to go back to get my trolling motor so we could do a better job of maneuvering around the rivers edges.  It is electric and quite quiet compared to the gas one they supplied.

. 
Boat Ramp, Martinez Lake.  Click image to enlarge.

We went back out to the entrance of the river and I caught a nice stripped bass of about 2 pounds on a new lure for me, a Rapala rap shad. (See photo below). We were deciding to head back up the river when I realized that the 2:20 time WAS REALLY 3:20, there time!!!  DRATS.  Just when we were getting into it.  (I now realize that also meant we must have took it out at 1 pm.  They must have been wondering 'why bother'?)  At that point I was wondering it myself.

I must say, the young man helping us at the boat docks was very nice, and offered to let us rent the boat (pre-pay and sign all of the contracts) that night so we could get a head start out on the lake the next day.  But knowing we had to be back two hours before sunset, when the fish usually bite the best, was just too disheartening

The next day we opted to leave and head back to San Diego and to possibly fish San Vicente in the afternoon.  (We did, and hit 'Anglers Edge' in Lakeside for some more bass fishing supplies beforehand).  We got to San Vicente later than I would have wanted, about 3 p.m., but  I still caught a nice 2+ pound, 16" bass at sunset.  I was walking the shore and using a green and brown 7" Roboworm.  The fight was spectacular and he made many jumps, making our trips ending just perfect.

We just ate it two hours ago, and now it's 12:45 in the morning, bedtime.  (Yum, soaked it in cream to reduce the fishy taste, rolled it in bread-crumbs and fried it).  Time to dream of that lunker bass out there with my name on it.  I will go back to Martinez when and if I have my own boat.  Lord willing, that won't be too long from now.  Will trade art for boats.  Know anyone?

Happy fishing...

Michael with a small striper on the Colorado River, just off the entrance to Martinez Lake.  Photo copyright by Valerie Seewald.

More on Martinez Lake area: Bob La Londe - Yumabassman

Napa/Sonoma Trip

The following images are from a trip to Napa/Sonoma
the first three weeks of May, '03.

"I just loved this area!  Most of the lakes, unlike San Diego, did not have a daily permit charge.  I'd see a nice area and stop, unload the pole and start casting.  Caught lots of hungry bass.  Not only that, the lakes are sooooooo  pretty. Beautiful oak trees dot the rolling green hills around each lake.  You'd think you died and went to heaven.

Click to enlarge.

     Michael's first 'frog fish'.  Caught in friends Jim and Judy Murphy's 'front yard pond' up in Santa Rosa California.  He bit on an artificial floating frog bait.

      "I thought I'd hooked into a weird bass.  I'd cast
under the weeping willow tree knowing a bass was
sure to live there.  Upon the lure splashing down
something lunged from the side of the shore and nailed it.
      As I fought it I kept wondering why it kept trying to
get to the shoreline, instead of out to deeper water as bass always want to do?
      I soon found out, as when it was close enough I noticed it was actually a large frog.