It’s high time for a new Texas state record largemouth, but where will it come from?

Story and photography by Matt Williams

If this February is like most, visions of “teeners” are dancing in the minds of big bass junkies across Texas. The super-sized largemouths weighing upwards of 13 pounds are always females, and most will be full of eggs now with spawning season just around the corner.

Experts say a mature female bass with egg-swollen ovaries may weigh 10 percent more than it will without. Factor in a healthy breakfast and a big bass can develop a really serious weight problem in a hurry.

To wit:

Brodey Smith’s 17.06 pounder caught from Lake O.H. Ivie last March was one fat crappie or big gizzard shad away from toying with the hallowed ground that’s been in Barry St. Clair’s wheelhouse for more than three decades now. Smith’s fish, the heaviest bass reported in Texas since 1999 and the No. 7 biggest Texas bass of all-time, was just 1.12 pounds shy of St. Clair’s 18.18 pound state record hauled in at Lake Fork in 1992.

Many Texas anglers will agree the current record has been gathering dust way too long. Texas’ bass fishing community is hungry for a new record bass. Nothing against St. Clair, but I’m starving for someone to reel in the special fish that cracks the code.

It would be great for fishing, and golden for Texas. Such a fish also would be fluffy feather in the cap of Texas Parks and Wildlife, especially TPWD geneticist Dijar Lutz-Carrillo were about to confirm it as a direct offspring of a Toyota Legacy ShareLunker.

As of December 17, 2022, Lutz-Carrillo had confirmed 10 ShareLunker program entries between 12.6 and 15.3 pounds as daughters of former ShareLunkers. The program began its 37th season in January.

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