Although it is the most-infertile of all the major reservoirs in South Carolina, Lake Jocassee in the Upstate mountains has produced the state records for three of the four black bass species recognized by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.
The three record bass, all caught in 2001, are an 8-pound, 5-ounce spotted bass, aka Alabama bass, a 9-pound, 7-ounce smallmouth bass, and a 5-pound, 2.5-ound redeye bass — which is also the all-tackle world record.
Because the lake is so infertile, it will not support large numbers of bass, but the fish that live there are healthy — and hefty.
“People think that is counter-intuitive, but it relates to a number of factors,” said Dan Rankin, an SCDNR fisheries biologist. “Those factors include low fishing pressure compared to other reservoirs, probably there are less parasite and disease problems, and the bass live a long time in Jocassee because of the clear water.”
The primary forage base in Jocassee is blueback herring, Rankin said, but there are also spikes in some years of threadfin shad, which adds to the forage base.
“It seems like when we have a really cold winter, we lose most, if not all, of the threadfin shad, but they come back. We think the reversible turbines pump the threadfins up from Keowee and repopulate the lake,” he said.
Bass densities are lower, Rankin said, which means fewer young bass survive in Jocassee, but the ones that do live to greater size can readily eat the larger blueback herring. Sometimes, bigger bass will also eat the trout that are stocked in Jocassee, but primarily the herring diet propels them to be “big, fat, chunky bass.”
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