This is a lake old Bill Murphy used to pound. If you�ve read his book, "In Pursuit of Giants." The lake produced several fish in the 18 lb range back in the day. It�s been closed nearly a decade, and is tentatively set to reopen to fishing later this year. 7 full years of uninterrupted spawns, talk about an experimental dream for big bass fishing. I believe it probably has one of the better chances of any lake out there to spit out a new WR in the next 12 months; assuming it reopens.

http://bassfishingarchives.com/western/san-vicente-then-now-and-the-future#more-8503

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/jan/04/outdoors-san-vicente-fishing-opener/?#article-copy

Would love to fish it but imagine what a sh*tshow opening day is going to be...

Yeah, it sounds like at least initially there will be quite a few things they do to restrict access to keep it from getting completely swamped.

Not completely unmolested... they mentioned poachers in one of the articles... And raising the water level that much is going to do some WEIRD things. I bet it starts out TOUGH at first.

Also I noticed it said, "Trout plants will probably resume" they haven't continued to stock trout during the off time... so you don't have the "steroid" factor of the trout...

I bet it takes 2 years of trout before they catch a 20+

True, but they also said there were vast schools of shad that "could only be compared to clouds of anchovies or sardines in the ocean." Another article I read said they would start stocking trout several months in advance of the opener, not that it would make a huge difference at that point. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

See all the world class fish coming out of Squaw Creek after closing it for so many years after 9-11? On the flip side: look what a massive rise in water did for Falcon.

I think the fact we got the lake full will pay big dividends in the near future. If it stays full over the summer the fall bite up shallow might be legendary.

^this^ plus I believe that effect of the spawn will be seen in the next 2-3 years with a big influx with this years class of fish

if fork was closed for a decade it would be like the 80's if the grass grows.

All the fork guys would sell their boats and gear

What people don't realize is that these lakes, San Vincente and Fork both owe their fame to florida largemouth. I did not read that they had restocked the CA lake while the dam has been rebuilt so I'm thinking they will not have any large number of huge fish in it when it opens again.
Same with Fork. Unless they closed the lake and stocked true florida bass in it then they would not have any large number of huge fish when it was opened.

Without tournaments and guys catching them there would be plenty of toads

Uh.....you do know they put hundreds of thousands of pure Florida bass in Fork every year right??

Yes. With the huge bass population they have maintained a 6 percent pure Florida bass population. If they did not continue the stockings when it was closed the population would dwindle and the competition between the large number of fish competing would make it hard for a large number of large fish to exist.

When the lake was young they had a much greater population of pure Florida bass. That won't happen again.

6%??? Show me please....