Texas fishing guide catches 8th heaviest largemouth bass in state history

SAN ANTONIO – A lake about an hour east of San Angelo has grow to be one of many hottest bass fishing lakes within the U.S.

For a number of years, O.H. Ivie Lake has persistently produced among the largest bass in Texas however final week, fishing information Jason Conn landed a “historic” catch.

Conn, of Anna, reeled in a 17.03-pound largemouth bass — the eighth-heaviest largemouth bass ever caught in Texas — on Feb. 13 on the lake.

The fisherman joined GMSA at 9 on Monday to debate the historic catch, which he named “Pre-Valentine.”

Conn mentioned he was taking shoppers on a constitution at round 11 a.m. and was exhibiting them the fundamentals of fishing.

Then, he noticed her.

“This fish right here that I caught, she simply occurred to be beneath my trolling motor,” he mentioned. “We had been drifting again, and I simply occurred to look down and noticed her.”

Utilizing an umbrella rig, he took two steps again to put the lure over her head. The bass noticed the bait and went after it, setting the hook.

“The battle was on from there. It was only a wild expertise throughout,” he mentioned.

The fishermen took the bass to the marina and known as the Toyota ShareLunker program, which is from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Division.

Representatives from this system went to the lake and picked up “Pre-Valentine.”

“They’ll maintain her in a facility up there. She’s bought her personal tank and that’s the place she’ll spawn at. She’ll spawn with a ShareLunker male,” Conn mentioned.

He added that “it’s been an unbelievable expertise.”

In line with TPWD, Conn’s catch was the sixth-heaviest fish donated to the ShareLunker program. He was the tenth angler to submit a fish to this system this yr.

“An unimaginable catch by Conn led to a really historic day for bass fishing in Texas,” program coordinator Natalie Goldstrohm mentioned in a information launch final week. “Bass this massive are particularly uncommon and this fish is among the largest bass ever caught in Texas. We’re grateful to Conn for sharing his catch with this system and for the possibility to spawn this distinctive bass with a male ShareLunker descendent, so her offspring have the perfect genetic potential to develop into Lunker bass.”

The ShareLunker program runs year-round and is geared toward enhancing bass fishing in Texas.

It has 4 ranges of participation:

• Legacy Class, 13-plus kilos between January and March.

• Legend Class, 13-plus kilos from April to December.

• Lunker Class, 8-plus kilos.

• Elite Class, 10-plus kilos.

If anglers catch a fish that meets the factors, they will enter the fish’s information on the Toyota ShareLunker cellular app or the web site TexasSharelunker.com. Anglers can even present a DNA pattern from their bass for genetic evaluation.

Anglers who reel in a 13-plus pound bass between January and March can donate it to TPWD for the selective breeding and stocking program.

Anglers are capable of win prizes and enter drawings in the event that they submit their catches. For extra info, click on right here.

The “scorching lakes” for ShareLunkers embody O.H. Ivie, Conroe, Lake Fork, Joe Pool, Walter E. Lengthy Reservoir, Brownwood, Arlington, Athens and Alan Henry.

For the second yr in a row, a fisherman at O.H. Ivie has reeled in a fish over 17 kilos, based on TPWD.

The Texas state report is eighteen.18 kilos, held by Barry St. Clair of Klondike. St. Clair caught the fish in 1992 at Lake Fork.

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