In our most recent non-climate-change-severe-weather event, I was holed up at home and thinking about fish, bass fishing to be exact.
I ended up with the all-time Share Lunker Program record on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website. The most successful public participation programs have been around for 35 years and are still going strong.
Once just a confirmation of the stocking program that puts Florida strain largemouths in Lake Fork, ShareLunker has spread to lakes large and small across Texas. The Fork has dominated the lists for years and still produces its share of bass 13-pounds and larger, but anglers are catching big trophy bass everywhere.
For example, Lake Austin has proven to be a surprisingly productive lake for large bass, even though Central Texas has always lagged behind East Texas in terms of largemouth production. Check out the list and you’ll see little Lake Raven, located in Sam Houston State Park near Huntsville.
That lake is probably an afterthought for stocking Lake Livingston or Lake Conroe, but it produced one lunker bass. Perhaps the most famous bass, however, was caught by Larry Stevenson in November of 1986.
Not only was it a new state record at 17.67 pounds, but it started the lunker program. The fish remained the state record until Barry St. Clair’s 18.18-pound bass in January of 1992.
Both of those fish came from Lake Fork, which still dominates the top 10 bass all-time records for Texas. Seven of the largest bass caught in Texas came from Lake Fork. There are two others from OH Ivie, which has been a more recent hot spot for trophy bass.
The other exception to the Lake Fork’s dominance of the top 10 Texas bass was the 16.9-pound monster Center angler Early Crawford caught on Pinkston Lake in February of 1986.
Private lakes have produced large bass over the years, though some anglers complained that private lakes would take away Texas fish records and the TPWD was forced to change rules to prevent those fish in the program. I always thought that was ridiculous because the fish were caught in Texas and not all made it into the lunker program.
No one asked me, though.
If you are interested in viewing fish records, TPWD maintains them online at https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/programs/fishrecords/freshwater/top50_largemouth.phtml. It’s a great way to spend a cold, windy winter day without having to go out in the weather and try to catch one of those giant bass.
