BIG BASS BECKON.

Byline: Jim Matthews Special to the Daily News

Serious bass anglers who have been fishing in deep water all winter perk up and take notice when the first big bass is caught after the turn of the year.

Casual bassers read about the big catch, step out into the yard and squint at the sun on a balmy day after a rain and go into the garage and begin respooling line on the bass reels.

They know by the calendar that the pre-spawn bite of the big, potential world-record-size largemouths is just days away. (The record largemouth, a 22-1/4-pounder caught in Georgia in 1932, is one of the longest-standing fishing marks.)

The biggest catch of the year will be caught between now and the next three months. That first big fish just reminds us that the best bite of the year is about to happen.

Well, the first behemoth has been boated.

Gary Harrison was out on Castaic Lake the first weekend of the year guiding Bakersfield angler Greg Lopez and his 13-year-old son, Vince, when the teen-ager landed a 16-1/2-pound largemouth bass using a water dog for bait. The fish, which was released, was 28 inches long with a 21-inch girth.

And just as each new big-bass season is marked by an inaugural milestone, there seems to be a new lure being touted for catching monstrous hawgs.

Water dogs, mudsuckers and crawdads are the live bait of choice of huge fish during this part of the year, when a slow presentation on deep points target the big fish that are staging (progressively moving to higher water) before coming up to the topwater to spawn and slash through schools of rainbow trout.

But lures like the A.C. Plug, Castaic Trout, Castaic Soft Bait and Worm King swim bait have all proven they are as good or better than live bait for consistently nailing the largest of bass.

Yet bass anglers are never satisfied. They want a lure that is even more effective, more imitative of the bass' prey, or one that will allow them to fish in different situations.

Sean Donovan of Santa Monica was one of those anglers. Three years ago Donovan began carving molds for a swim-bait design that looked and moved more like a rainbow trout, and could be fished in and through heavier cover. When he caught and released a five-fish limit of largemouth bass weighing 56 pounds while shore-fishing at Castaic Lagoon last February, requests for his bait were so overwhelming he was obliged to produce them commercially.

``It wasn't my plan to market this bait. I just wanted to make it for myself, to catch bigger bass,'' Donovan said. ``But now it's taken over my life.''

So was born the Optimum Swim Bait. The eight- and 10-inch versions have become the rage in the past couple of months on big-bass waters - to the point of already being copied by other soft-bait makers. Donovan has hardly fished since catching that stringer of mammoth monster fish, which was topped by a 15-pounder.

But it is not the memory of that incredible limit that Donovan remembers; it's the one that got away that day.

``I lost one bass at 20-plus - it was the biggest bass I've ever seen in my life,'' he said. It was only a few casts later that he landed the 15-pounder, but all he could think about was its bigger brother.

He predicts that if there is a world record to be caught, it will be in Castaic Lagoon, Castaic Lake's lower afterbay.

And an increasing number of anglers believe the Optimum Swim Bait will be the lure that does the trick.

``Oh, that's the bait right now,'' said guide Harrison. ``A lot of shore anglers (at the Castaic Lagoon) are getting good fish up to 12 pounds that are not being reported. I know because I've been weighing them for these guys.''

The bait is different from other swim baits in that it is pre-rigged with a jig head so all the angler has to do is tie one on and pitch it out. No pushing the hook through the plastic body.

When popped or ripped sharply, its turns quickly, flashing in the water, just like a rainbow trout. When allowed to sink it slowly curls its way down to the bottom like an injured trout in its death spiral.

It comes in six sizes, from the 5-ounce, 10-inch version to the small, 3-1/2-inch version, and in 26 color combinations, including three trout patterns and four shad colors.