It’s been an eventful year thus far for Toyota ShareLunker. Through Feb. 19 Texas Parks and Wildlife’s popular spawning and genetics research program had taken in six Legacy Class entries upwards of 13 pounds.
It’s looking like things are setting up for another banner collection season with the height of the spawn still ahead. Legacy Lunkers will be accepted through March 31.
Two of the early February entries were 14-pounders caught by Willie Pipkins of Dripping Springs and Ross Gomez of Lubbock. Interestingly, neither angler was fishing from a boat.
Pipkins was fishing from shore at Lady Bird Lake. Gomez was casting from a public boat dock at Lake Alan Henry.
Gomez’ 14.78-pounder is the heavier of the two bank bass. There is a whopper of a fishing story behind the remarkable catch, too.
Located near Lubbock, Alan Henry has a rich history of producing super-sized bass. To date, the 2,900-acre reservoir has cranked out 32 Legacy class fish, including a lake record 15 pounder caught in March 2006.
Gomez, 50, is no stranger on the roster of Share-Lunker donors. He landed a 13.22-pounder at Alan Henry on Feb. 10, 2023.
Interestingly, Gomez wasn’t targeting bass at the time. The angler was crappie fishing from the public dock at the Sam Wahl Recreation Area. He was using a lightweight spinning outfit, 4-pound line and a Bobby Garland crappie jig for bait.
Gomez loaned the fish to TPWD for spawning at the program headquarters in Athens. The good deed paid off with nearly 34,000 fingerlings for stocking in Texas lakes.
Roughly two months later the big bass was returned to Alan Henry and released, but not before biologists marked it with a Passive Integrated Transponder (“PIT” tag), as they do all Legacy fish. The lifetime tags emit a unique code when scanned with a special antenna. This allows scientists to easily identify the fish if happens to get caught again.
Here’s where the story takes on a really cool twist:
Same fish, same spot, different year
Gomez’ most recent February lunker was caught from the same exact spot as the 13.22-pounder in 2023, again using lightweight spinning tackle. His line of choice was 8-pound-test and he used a pre-rigged paddletail minnow for bait. The 3-inch soft plastic was colored like a baby bass.
“I like to fish the northwest corner of the dock,” Gomez said. “It’s pretty open below without much brush and the water is about 50-feet deep. I thought about going out in my kayak that day, but it was just too windy. In looking back, I’m glad I didn’t.”
The similarities between the two catches don’t end there. Two days after turning over his second Legacy Lunker in three seasons, Gomez said he received a text message from Toyota ShareLunker program coordinator Natalie Goldstrohm with news that biologists discovered a PIT tag in the body cavity of his 14.78-pounder. The tag identified the big bass as the same one he caught in 2023.
Gomez said the news he had caught the same fish twice came as a pleasant surprise, but it wasn’t a total shock.
“I had just told my wife the day before that I was betting it was the same fish,” he said. “The length and girth measurements were so close – I just had a hunch it was the same fish. Turns out I was right.”
Gomez’ 14-pounder lands him in pretty tall cotton. He is the first angler in the 39-year history of the program to catch the same Legacy Lunker twice on public water.
Here’s another piece of information about the fish that big bass buffs may find interesting.
In April 2023, Gomez accompanied TPWD fisheries technician David De Leon on the live release of the fish. The bass was transported by boat to the upper reaches of Rocky Creek and released in good shape. De Leon said the distance between the catch and release sites is about 3.3 miles.
“It’s amazing that she found her way back to the dock from that far,” Gomez said.
Home Bodies
Interestingly, similar things have happened before on other lakes.
To wit: In January 2021, Danny Ramsey of Trinidad was competing in a Media Bass tournament at Lake Palestine when he caught a 13.07 pounder around a boat dock. Ramsey had a history with the dock. He caught a 12.65 pounder there the year before, also during a Media event.
The 12.65 pounder was released after weigh-in at Lake Palestine Resort, roughly four miles from the dock where it was caught.
The story developed an even more bizarre twist soon after Ramsey took the 13-pounder to weigh-in. He and the tournament director compared photos of the two fish. The men noted some distinctive physical characteristics in the photos they believe clearly identified the two fish as the same bass.
TPWD fisheries biologist Jake Norman of Tyler saw the pictures and agreed with the assessment.
“The pictures were spot on,” Norman said. “You can’t be 100 percent sure without running genetics or having some kind of identification tag, but I don’t have any doubts it was the same fish. The fact it moved back to the same area where it was caught a year earlier isn’t that surprising. But the fact he was able to catch that same fish, in the same tournament, in the same spot, two years in a row – that’s needle-in-ahaystack stuff. What a cool deal.”
John Hope of Houston has witnessed the inherent homing instincts of big bass more than once.
Hope is a former Houston County fishing guide who spent nearly a decade trying to unravel some of the mysteries of big bass behavior. Between 1986 and 1994, he surgically implanted thumb-size electronic transmitters in 57 bass ranging in size from six to 15 pounds. Hope monitored the fish in 15 different lakes. A few of the study fish where Toyota ShareLunkers.
Hope learned plenty in his studies. He eventually documented the findings in a book, “Trackin’ Trophies.”
A segment of his study was dedicated to several tournament-caught bass on Sam Rayburn. The fish, all weighing upwards of six pounds, were caught north of the State Highway 147 bridge and transported 18 miles down the lake for weigh-in. That’s where the transmitters were installed and the fish were released.
Hope relocated all but one of the study fish a few days later. The bass had traveled roughly 18 miles back up the lake and were positioned in close proximity to where they originally caught.
“I witnessed the same thing several more times on different lakes,” Hope said. “Big bass are definitely home bodies. They know directions and they are gifted with a natural instinct to find their way back home.”
Outdoors Briefs TBGA entry deadline coming March 1
The Texas Big Game Awards program scored entry deadline is closing in for lucky Texas hunters who harvested qualifying white-tailed deer, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, javelina or bighorn sheep during the 2024-25 hunting season. Completed entry forms available at texasbiggameawards.org must be postmarked no later than midnight on March 1. There also are categories for youth and first harvest entries; no scoring required.
TBGA is a hunter/landowner recognition program run jointly the Texas Wildlife Association and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department since 1991.The program recognizes hunters who harvest quality big game animals and the land managers responsible for producing them, while stressing the importance of our hunting heritage and the achievement of young and first-time hunters.
Animals that were born or bred in captivity and subsequently released into the wild are not eligible.
The program is free for anyone to enter. To enter an animal as a “scored entry,” scoring must be performed by a certified TBGA scorer or an official Boone and Crockett scorer.
Minimum net green B&C scores for program eligibility are as follows: pronghorn - 70, typical mule deer - 145, non-typical mule deer - 160, typical white-tailed deer - 125 to 140 (depending on region), and non-typical whitetailed deer - 140 to 155 (depending on region).
Successful hunters are awarded certificates and their photos are posted online. Banquets/awards ceremonies are held at designated locations during summer. Check the TBGA website for banquet dates and locations.
18.92 takes ‘Champs event at Fork
Drew Sloan and Nolan Jackson weighed in 18.92 pounds to top the field of 216 teams in the Feb. 15 Bass Champs event at Lake Fork. The winning weight was anchored by a 12.77 pounder, the tournament’s biggest fish.
Sloan/Jackson netted $26,600, including big bass and contingency bonuses. They said caught their fish around grass using red Rat-L-Traps. Charles Fisher and Chris Albritton took second with 15.32 pounds, $10,600. The second place bag was anchored by a 9.97 pounder, also caught on a lipless crank bait, according to Bass Champs Jeff Welch.
The full field weighed in 381 fish totaling 626 pounds. Fifty-two teams weighed limits and 116 teams zeroed.
Miller tops field in BASS Open
Iowa bass pro Chris Miller banked $52,086 and punched an automatic ticket to the 2026 Bassmaster Classic with a convincing win in the weather-shortened Bassmaster Open held February 14 on Sam Rayburn in eastern Texas. Originally scheduled as a three-day event, the tournament was reduced to singleday shootout after foul weather predictions forced the cancellation of days one and three.
Miller weighed in 2810 on five bass, including a 9 1/2 pounder that hit a jerkbait. He was targeting drains in 6-12 feet of water.
Texas anglers Pake South of Winnsboro and Jaden Parrish of Liberty also finished among the Top 5. South took third with 23-11 in his first big league event. He won $15,626. Parrish finished fifth with 23-2, $13,542.
Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by e-mail, mattwillwrite4u@ yahoo.com.
