Thanks to Orville P. Ball's visionary experiment, San Diego bass fishing was never the same after 1959.
As city lakes superintendent, Mr. Ball arranged to import a Florida-strain largemouth bass that would turn local waters into a treasured destination for discriminating freshwater anglers.
“It changed the entire world of bass fishing,” said Jim Brown, Mr. Ball's successor as superintendent. “It was a watershed event.”
Mr. Ball, who also helped develop master plans for Lake Cuyamaca, Lake Morena and Sweetwater Reservoir, died in his sleep Tuesday at his home in Shelton, Wash. He was 82.
The cause of death has not been determined.
About 10 years ago, Mr. Ball moved from El Cajon to Shelton, where he continued to work as a consultant in water quality, reservoir recreation and fisheries management.
“The success of the Florida bass has enabled the lakes to furnish quality fishing in spite of the huge population increase in San Diego County,” said John Salyer, a retired educator and longtime angler who once worked with Mr. Ball.
“Next to Florida, San Diego County is one of the premier places to look for big bass,” Salyer said.
Mr. Ball, the second fish and wildlife superintendent to work for the city of San Diego's Water Department, took over the position in the late 1950s. He left in the early 1970s to serve as a consultant.
His quest to import the Florida bass began as an ambitious and controversial experiment. “Some called it 'Orville's Folly,'” Mr. Ball told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1996.
The concept was hatched on a fishing outing at Lake Henshaw, where Mr. Ball was joined by major league infielder Ray Boone, a fellow Hoover High School graduate, and then-San Diego Union outdoors writer Rolla Williams.
“Boone wondered aloud as to why the largemouth bass he encountered in Florida during his spring training camps grew so much larger than the bass in his home waters of San Diego,” Brown said.
Mr. Ball enlisted the support of leading San Diego outdoorsmen and Carl Hubbs, a pre-eminent fisheries scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He then brought baby bass from Florida and deposited them at Upper Otay Reservoir.
As the fish grew and reproduced, they were transplanted into other county reservoirs and lakes beginning in 1960. A multimillion-dollar industry was spawned, to be fueled by the 1970s craze for trophy bass.
More difficult to catch than northern bass, the Florida variety lived much longer and grew to be larger than their northern counterparts.
“Fishing had declined before Orville's experiment,” Salyer said. “His vision put fishing back on the map here. Economically, the lakes owe him a great deal.”
Before the Florida imports, a six pounder was as good as it got hereabouts. Later, six-to-eight pounders of the Florida strain became commonplace in local waters, and occasional 10-to-12 pounders added to the mystique.
“Those Florida-strain largemouth bass now account for all but two of the 25 largest bass of all time,” Brown said. “The next world record will surely come about as the result of Ball's farsightedness.”
In 1997, Mr. Ball was inducted into the new Bass Fishing Hall of Fame at the San Diego Hall of Champions.
Mr. Ball was born Oct. 22, 1924, at Mercy Hospital and grew up in East San Diego.
As a boy, he fished for bass, bluegill and catfish in the San Diego River. After graduating from Hoover High, where he was a standout running back, Mr. Ball earned a bachelor's degree in biology at San Diego State College.
He added a master's degree at the University of Montana, basing his thesis on the study of cutthroat trout at Yellowstone National Park. Then he taught for three years at Utah State University before returning to his San Diego roots to succeed Rudolph Wueste in overseeing recreation for the city's lakes system.
“Orville was a great source of information about various watersheds,” Brown said. “He loved fishing for trout in streams where people didn't believe they existed.”
Known for his cheerful demeanor, Mr. Ball had a penchant for the corniest of jokes. “Anytime you ran into him, he had a joke for you,” Brown said.
Mr. Ball was divorced from his first wife, Laura Lou Jorgenson, whom he married in 1946.
Survivors include his wife, Sandy; sons, Sean Ball of Shelton, Wash., and Eddie Brisendine of Ramona; daughters, Nancy Gruwell of Spring Valley, Laura Ball of Carlsbad, Deanne Seiler of Rancho Santa Fe and Pamela Casselman of Hidden Hills; brother, Robert Ball of San Diego; eight grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Cremation is planned in Shelton, Wash. A memorial service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Nov. 18 at Lake Cuyamaca.
Jack Williams: (619) 542-4587; jack.williams@uniontrib.com
