CJ Oates on Thursday was reeling his lure past a wooden dock when “I felt the slightest tick.” He reared back, inspiring a violent head shake, and realized that he had hooked an enormous largemouth bass.
“She was so massive that I could barely reel to get her in,” Oates, who was fishing at Lake Austin, Texas, told For the Win Outdoors. “She was built like a mini school bus.”
After a nighttime fight described as “madness,” Oates boated a bass that weighed 13.02 pounds, a milestone catch and a fish that could help boost fishing opportunities around the state.
It was the second “Legacy Class” largemouth bass to have been donated live to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in 2021, marking a fast start to the agency’s seasonal Toyota ShareLunker Program.
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There are several divisions but only Legacy Class fish – those 13 pounds or heavier – are used in a selective breeding program that runs during the spawning period from January through March. Biologist encourage spawning and rear the young for future stocking opportunities.
“Congratulations, CJ, and thank you for your contribution to helping make bass fishing bigger and better in Texas!” Parks and Wildlife wrote on Facebook.
According to the ShareLunker website, “Out of the millions of bass anglers in Texas, only a select few have ever crossed the 13-pound threshold.”
Oates’ catch, on a football jig, occurred less than a week after Travis Moore landed a 13.44-pound largemouth bass during a tournament on Sam Rayburn Reservoir.
Moore, who used a Carolina rig, told San Angelo Live:
“This was one of the best days of my life. I’ve caught a few 12-pounders and handful of 10-pounders, but this one here is special for me. As a bass fisherman, this is what we fish for every time we go out on the water.”
Oates said he and John Davilla had fished several spots on Lake Austin without any luck before the the giant bass struck at 9:30 p.m.
“For a moment I thought I was hung up and then I felt her head shake,” Oates recalled. “At that point things started to get really serious. During all this madness we didn’t have time to turn the headlamps on so we didn’t have much of a gauge of how big she was.
“So I get her to the boat and she started jumping and splashing and it was hard for my buddy to to net her in the darkness, but he finally got her. He picks her up and and sets her in the boat and that’s when we turned our headlamps on. We couldn’t believe what we had done.”
–Images of CJ Oates (top) and Travis Moore are courtesy of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department