On March 31, Oklahoma fishing buddies Cullie Beveal and Jonathan Excessive made the six-hour drive to O.H. Ivie Lake east of San Angelo, Texas. That they had booked a two-day journey with Kyle Corridor, and their expectations had been excessive. A famous bass information and event fisherman, Corridor is one a couple of native anglers who has helped construct O.H. Ivie’s popularity in recent times as one of the top trophy largemouth lakes within the South.
“I fished the lake with Kyle final 12 months and caught my greatest bass, weighing 10.5 kilos,” Beveal tells Outside Life. “My aim this 12 months was to catch a bass greater than that one.”
The 2 Sooner State anglers hit the water with Corridor early on April 1. However powerful situations made the motion gradual.
“It was brutal, with winds to 40 mph, making our fishing actually tough,” says Beveal, 26. “We used ‘LiveScope’ to seek for massive bedding bass in 6 to eight ft of water. We discovered some bass however [they] weren’t .”
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The next morning, April 2, the wind was nonetheless blowing, however the anglers had been decided to maintain trying to find massive fish utilizing Corridor’s forward-facing sonar. They discovered one bass on a nest that Corridor believed was about 8-pounds. However the fish wouldn’t chunk.
Simply after midday, they situated one other, greater bass on the FFS. Beveal solid a swim bait to the fish — he was utilizing a 6th Sense Panorama 6.5 within the bluegill coloration. His first solid was off the mark a bit, so he reeled in and made a second solid to the fish that was now simply 15 ft from their boat.
His second solid landed simply past the bass. He labored his bait towards the largemouth and let it sink.
“I noticed the lure on sonar land close to the mattress,” Beveal explains. “The fish was agitated and went nostril down towards the lure. I knew the bass was going to take the swimbait, and a second later I set the hook into what felt like a brick wall.”
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Beveal couldn’t imagine the facility of the bass at first. It was a unique type of pull, and Corridor yelled for him to combat the fish more durable. Beveal labored it in rapidly towards Corridor’s touchdown web.
“Kyle netted the fish and put it on the deck. And none of us stated something for a couple of seconds … We had been in awe.”
Corridor pulled out the digital hand scale he had, which confirmed a weight of greater than 16 kilos.
“I instructed Kyle and Jonathan, ‘No manner.’ There was simply no probability of that fish weighing that a lot,” says Beveal. “We put the fish within the dwell nicely, after which we headed to Elm Creek Marina the place we launched that morning as a result of they’d an authorized scale.”
At Elm Creek the egg-laden feminine bass formally weighed 16.39 kilos. It measured 27.75 inches lengthy, with a large, 22-inch girth. It’s the 20th largest bass ever caught in Texas, in accordance with Texas Parks and Wildlife, and the most important weighed this 12 months by state fisheries biologists.
Kyle made a name to TPWD immediately to inform them concerning the bass they’d caught.
“The state’s Legacy ShareLunker program for the spring spawn had simply ended, and Kyle needed to know in the event that they nonetheless needed the fish for his or her stocking program,” Beveal saus. “They stated, ‘Completely,’ they usually had a crew there with a transport tank to take the fish in simply half-hour.”
Beveal’s bass is now in a big aquarium on the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Heart in Athens. Spawn from the fish will likely be used within the state’s ShareLunker Program, a remarkably efficient breeding and stocking program the place anglers can submit trophy bass to TPWD through the early spring. These bass are then spawned within the Fisheries Heart, and their progeny launched into O.H. Ivie and different Texas lakes.
“My bass was very alive and wholesome after we gave to the state of us,” Beveal stated. “I’ll have a reproduction mount made from the bass to at all times keep in mind that fishing day. I’m simply glad I didn’t catch it the day earlier than, which was April Idiot’s Day. Nobody ever would have believed me.”
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