Still sharp at 79, veteran angler J.L. McBride remembers his giant 5-bass stringer of '68

04/01/2001

By Ray Sasser / Outdoors Writer of The Dallas Morning News

You won't find J.L. McBride's name in fishing records of Texas, but the retired Dallas Morning News printer probably caught the heaviest five-fish stringer of largemouth bass in Lone Star history. And the fish didn't come from Lake Fork during that vaunted lake's glory days.

"Mac," as he became known to fishing fanatics throughout the southeast, made his prodigious catch in 1968, long before oversized Florida bass were common in Texas waters. He caught the fish from an 1,100-acre, Texas Power and Light Company power plant lake called Valley Lake. The lake is near Savoy, Texas, between Sherman and Bonham.

McBride, an active 79 and still fishing, noted with interest a recent story about Arizona bass pro Dean Rojas making a Bass Anglers Sportsman Society tournament record haul from Florida's Lake Toho. Rojas' B.A.S.S. official total for a five-bass limit, weighed together, was 45 pounds, 2 ounces. When the fish were weighed individually, they totaled 45 pounds, 8 ounces.

Rojas won the four-day tournament with a total weight of 108 pounds, 12 ounces. McBride's one-day, 15-fish limit catch included five bass that weighed 48 pounds, 10 ounces. The top three fish weighed 10 pounds; 10 pounds, 7 ounces; and 10 pounds, 8 ounces. The smallest two weighed 9 pounds, 9 ounces; and 8 pounds, 2 ounces.

McBride, a lifelong fisherman, first heard about Valley Lake in 1966. He drove up one day to check it out and discovered that fishing was allowed, but only from the bank. He looked the lake over and found a narrow neck of water that could not be seen from the headquarters.

There were cattails growing thick around the banks, and McBride figured he could sneak his float tube in and fish the neck of water undetected. That's what he did for two years, often taking friends with him. One scouting trip, he took one of the revolutionary Lowrance portable sonar units that was known as a "green box."

Floating in his tube, McBride held the sonar screen in one hand. He held the transducer in his other hand, directing it at the bottom as he slowly paddled around his restricted fishing area. From the information on his screen, McBride painstakingly mapped the bottom and was particularly excited to find a dramatic dropoff where the water went from three feet deep on a shallow shelf next to the cattails to 16 feet deep in a vertical drop.

McBride discovered that the power-plant fishing was best during very cold weather. Dabbling heavy jigs with a nine-foot saltwater fly rod, he caught a lot of 7-pounders and even landed a bass weighing 9 pounds, 14 ounces, huge by 1966 Texas standards.

McBride's sideline job was promoting fishing tackle, and his stringers of big bass often wound up on display at Dallas sporting goods stores, though the fisherman admits fabricating a variety of tales on where the fish were caught.

As good as the fishing was, McBride's fishing partners decided it wasn't worth the discomfort of fishing from a float tube in icy water, protected only by rubber waders.

"It was brutal," admits McBride. "After 45 minutes in the cold water, I could not feel my legs. When I got out of the water, I'd have to lie on my back and pump my legs in the air like I was riding an upside-down bicycle to get the circulation going so I could walk back to the truck."

It was cold the day McBride made his big catch. He had never caught a 10-pound bass before that day, and he had three double-digit bass on his stringer. After weighing the top five fish, he took them to The News' office where staff photographers shot rolls of film. Photos appeared in the paper and were even transmitted by The Associated Press.

"When those pictures started showing up in papers all across America, I got calls from everywhere," McBride said. "People wanted to know where I caught the fish and would I take them fishing."

The next year, the power company poisoned the vegetation that made McBride's hot spot a big bass haven, and he quit fishing the spot. In 1974, McBride retired from The News and went to work as a fishing-tackle promoter.

"It was a dream job for me because I was making good money doing something I enjoyed doing," says McBride, who was a charter member of B.A.S.S. and won a garage full of fishing-tournament trophies.

McBride eventually donated the trophies to Texas Instruments to be used in fishing tournaments the company sponsored for orphans. They replaced McBride's name with the various names of the youth-tournament winners.

When McBride fishes these days, it's mainly for crappie at Lewisville Lake or for bass on a private three-acre lake near Randolph. For the latter, he still keeps it simple, using a Water Wagon, a one-man boat that's like a float tube on steroids.

"It takes three things to make a successful fisherman," says the old pro. "It takes confidence, common sense and a pocketful of luck."