Veteran tournament angler Gary Pope is 62 years old. He’s been fishing South Carolina’s Santee-Cooper Lakes for more than half that time, and he says the heavyweight largemouth he caught there during a tournament Saturday is the biggest he’s ever pulled from the lakes. The 13-pound, 6-ounce largemouth also tied a Bass Fishing League record for the heaviest bass ever weighed at a BFL event, according to Major League Fishing.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever see a bigger bass caught from those lakes,” Pope tells Outdoor Life. “And I’ve been fishing Santee since 1987.”
Pope caught the giant largemouth around 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 22. He was on Lake Marion, one of two large lakes that make up the Santee-Cooper system. His was one of 66 boats fishing the one-day BFL tournament, and he was easing his 20-foot Triton along a break line near a creek mouth, where the depth dropped from 3 to 6 feet. It was the same spot he’d found fish the previous week during practice.
“My co-angler, Ronnie Cutshall, and I had fished a couple hours without much luck. So, we went to the spot where I’d caught a 7-pounder the week before,” Pope says. “The water was a cool 44 degrees and I believe the bass were staging to spawn at the mouth of [that] creek.”
As they slowly worked toward the mouth, Pope’s GPS showed a slight rise along the lake bottom with a bed of grass on top. (He also has forward-facing sonar in his boat but says he didn’t need it to find the grass.) Using a Duckett medium-action plug rod, he cast a 1/3 ounce Berkley “Frittside” square-bill crankbait toward the spot.
“When my lure came by the grass she hit, and I knew right away it was a big, big fish,” says Pope, who lives in Georgetown. “The fish stripped drag and went around and under the boat. But I followed her around and got control of her.”
When he finally got the huge fish up beside the boat, he told Ronnie to get ready with the net.
“Then she started rolling and I was worried the hooks would pull out. But she never jumped, and when I pulled her up again to the surface Ronnie netted her. He’s a heck of a net man.
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“Ronnie said it was a 10 pounder, and I told him, ‘No sir, it’s much larger than that,’” Pope continues. “I’ve seen plenty of 10-pounders, and I’ve caught a bass over 12 pounds and I knew she was bigger than that one.”
They put the bass in the live well and kept on fishing. Pope caught another 7-pound bass from the same area before the action slowed. And although he couldn’t land any more big fish that day, Pope finished in 7th place and won $812 with a four-bass bag weighing 25 pounds 10 ounces.
Pope, who recently retired, says he’ll be fishing Santee-Cooper often since he lives only 90 minutes away. He thinks the lakes are seeing a boom in big bass, in part because water managers have allowed the weed beds to flourish. These grassy, baitfish-rich areas provide plenty of food and shelter for fish.
“Santee is on fire for big bass right now. There’s a tremendous number of huge bass in the lakes and they’re in prime pre-spawn condition.”