100 Best Bass Lakes-Best of the 2010’s
THIS ISSUE OF Bassmaster typically includes one of the most anticipated features in our sport: Bassmaster’s 100 Best Bass Lakes rankings. This list is created by collecting reams of tournament data from spring events to make the rankings timely and accurate. That said, spring events this year were mostly canceled due to the national response to COVID-19. With no data, we could not create the rankings. Still, we remain steadfast in our efforts to create bucket-list destinations for bass anglers in 2020. After all, there has been no time in recent history where using a boat to separate yourself from society was more apropos. Instead of digging into current tournament data to develop rankings, we decided to look at historical data reaching back to 2012, the first year we presented Bassmaster’s 100 Best Bass Lakes. The results were actually surprising. Some fisheries have quietly held top positions in the rankings, resulting in a place on this legacy lake list. Some fisheries have made a big splash in the past, only to fizzle over the years. On the following pages, you will see which lakes made the Top 25 of the 2010s. We will be creating a “Best of the Rest” Top 10 list for lakes from each region that barely missed the Top 25 on Bassmaster.com, so be sure to visit the site if your favorite fishery didn’t make the Top 25 cut.
1. Clear Lake, California [43,785 acres] Interestingly enough, this West Coast powerhouse has never held the top spot in the yearly rankings. That said, it has also never ranked below 10th in the nation, and it hit its high-water mark in 2014 when it ranked second. California’s largest natural lake landed in the Top 4 nationally the past three years and was ranked No. 1 in the Western region the past three years running. Consistency of production is paramount to being named king of this legacy lakes list, and Clear Lake has that in spades. Anglers can expect to consistently catch big fish here. Double-digit bass hardly turn heads. A bass over 16 pounds was landed here last year. Five-fish limits of over 30 pounds are commonplace. An average Clear Lake bass is over 5 pounds, and there are a lot of them swimming in the pristine waters of this Golden State treasure.
Take this with you: big swimbait, polarized sunglasses, jig, buzzbait
Plus: wine glass (after all, you are in wine country)
[69,000 acres] Much like Clear
