After hearing about a new lake record at Lake Jennings in San Diego, I had to set up a trip. Rick Guzman of San Diego caught a 60+ pound blue catfish at Jennings last month. The fish set a new lake record. It is reported that he also lost one at the boat that was estimated at twice the size of the new record!!!

I had my people contact their people and I got the lowdown on the lake. I hooked up with the supervising ranger, Hug Marx and he gave me the details. The lake is a little smaller than Irvine Lake and a whole lot deeper. The deepest spots are nearly 150 feet!!! Marx showed me some spots and off I went. The lake only rents rowboats and boats with trolling motors. The speed limit is 10mph. You can launch your own boat, but I think you can only use trolling motors. Check with the lake first. Don’t quote me, please.

I arrived at the first spot of four, not expecting a whole lot. I was in 75 feet near the buoy line. After about 30 minutes, my lines started moving a little. They weren’t hard hits so I waited. I finally decided to set the hook and missed it! I grabbed the other pole and set it into an 8+ pound blue catfish. It felt much heavier coming from nearly 100 feet down. For the rest of the day, it was nonstop action. I had over 60 bites!!! The only problem was that most bites came from 1 to 2 pounders. They are on the chew and will hit quick, so bring a lot of bait!! Really, because mackerel is $5 at the shop!!! Luckily I had a cool stock of Catmando with me.

Around 3:30pm it started to rain, and I was just about out of bait. I left the fish biting around 4pm. I wish I would have had more and bigger pieces of bait. It was hard getting past the “rats”. I ended up with 3 fish over 8 pounds and over a dozen of 1 to 3 pounders. After this trip, Lake Jennings is added to my list of one of the best catfish lakes in San Diego. The lake is only open Friday-Sunday from 5:45am to 5:30pm. The contact phone number is 619-390-1300. When I left the lake, I felt like our Governor because there was only one thought…“I’ll be back!”