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 match fisherman, Corridor is one just a few native anglers who has helped construct O.H. Ivie’s repute lately as one of many high 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 robust circumstances made the motion sluggish.
“It was brutal, with winds to 40 mph, making our fishing actually troublesome,” says Beveal, 26. “We used ‘LiveScope’ to seek for large 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 attempting to find large 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 chew.
Simply after midday, they situated one other, greater bass on the FFS. Beveal solid a swim bait to the fish — he was utilizing a sixth Sense Panorama 6.5 within the bluegill colour. 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 consider the facility of the bass at first. It was a special sort of pull, and Corridor yelled for him to battle the fish more durable. Beveal labored it in shortly towards Corridor’s touchdown web.
“Kyle netted the fish and put it on the deck. And none of us mentioned something for just a few 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 method.’ There was simply no likelihood of that fish weighing that a lot,” says Beveal. “We put the fish within the reside nicely, after which we headed to Elm Creek Marina the place we launched that morning as a result of that they had a licensed scale.”
At Elm Creek the egg-laden feminine bass formally weighed 16.39 kilos. It measured 27.75 inches lengthy, with an enormous, 22-inch girth. It’s the 20th largest bass ever caught in Texas, in line with Texas Parks and Wildlife, and the biggest weighed this 12 months by state fisheries biologists.
Kyle made a name to TPWD immediately to inform them in regards to the bass they’d caught.
“The state’s Legacy ShareLunker program for the spring spawn had simply ended, and Kyle wished to know in the event that they nonetheless wished the fish for his or her stocking program,” Beveal saus. “They mentioned, ‘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 Middle in Athens. Spawn from the fish can be used within the state’s ShareLunker Program, a remarkably efficient breeding and stocking program the place anglers can submit trophy bass to TPWD throughout the early spring. These bass are then spawned within the Fisheries Middle, and their progeny launched into O.H. Ivie and different Texas lakes.
“My bass was very alive and wholesome once we gave to the state people,” Beveal mentioned. “I’ll have a duplicate mount product of the bass to all the time do not forget 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.”
