Photo by Gene Hornbeck

When Art Berry was age 5, his father made a habit of dropping him off at Lower Otay Reservoir on weekends. It was Otay that taught Berry how to fish. More than 30 years later, Berry has used the lessons learned in his boyhood to make himself one of the top competitors on the FLW Outdoors Tour and one of the top bass anglers in the western United States.

Berry attributes much of the success to Otay’s bass -- a population that’s as good now as it was in the 1980s, when Otay was regarded as one of the best bass fisheries in the U.S. Nothing’s changed there, of course. It’s just that Otay has been out of the limelight ever since.

“Lower Otay is much different than most of the San Diego lakes,” Berry said. “I think it’s because you can do so many different things, and it doesn’t get a lot of pressure. I think it’s still one of the greatest one-day fishing lakes in the country. If you can go there after it’s been closed for a few days, the fishing is excellent. When I get a chance to go home and go to Lake Otay, it’s one of the greatest places I can go.”

But if Lower Otay is such an exceptional fishery, why has it virtually been erased from the map of California’s best bass waters? The answer may be fairly straightforward. Otay has a stable population of bass; however, in the last decade it hasn’t yielded many fish between 10 and 20 pounds. And in Southern California, a reservoir that can’t accomplish that feat is easy to overlook.

Yet few California waters can compete with the consistency of Otay in late summer and fall, when 5-pound fish are common.

“I think the population of largemouths is as good as it’s ever been. As far as being able to catch big ones, you are going to catch 20 pounds or more for five fish,” Berry added.

Situated near the Mexican border and within rock-throwing distance of the U.S. Olympic Training Center, Otay is a 1,100-acre reservoir with 25 miles of shoreline and all Florida-strain largemouth bass.

Located closest to Interstate 805, it’s also an exceptional catfish fishery that at one time held the state record for blue catfish. Crappie and bluegill are also plentiful.

Otay is much different than most So Cal reservoirs. Rather than being deep and formed in a narrow canyon, Otay is fairly flat and shallow, although it is deeper than 120 feet in a few spots. The main difference in Otay is that no trout are planted here, as they are in other southland reservoirs -- and chances are, they never will be. The water is too shallow to support trout throughout the year.

However, Otay stands tall. It’s proof that trout aren’t the only ingredient necessary to grow big bass. Otay’s bass make a living off eating bluegill, shad and crawdads.