Charles Roberts of Trinity, Texas, and his buddy B.J. Tarver had booked noted bass guide Brady Stanford for fishing on January 20. They started that morning looking for big bass using forward-facing sonar. But by mid-afternoon, they’d only caught one 6.5-pounder from numerous bass they’d “marked” on their sonar screen.
“At 3:30, we found a school of big fish near a submerged creek ledge in 35-feet of water,” Stanford told Wired2fish. “Charles made a cast with spinning tackle and 16-pound test braided line to the fish. He let the lure sink, and we watched a bass on sonar come to the jig and take it.”
Roberts set the hook, driving a half-ounce 3/0 jig with soft plastic shad-minnow attached into the fish – and a four-minute bass battle began.
The water was cold and though the fish fought hard, it stayed deep.
“The bass came to the surface once and when I got a look at it, I figured it was a 10-pounder,” said Sanford, 41, a guide for four years on the lake. “The fish came to the boat and it was a long reach to net it. But I got it in the mesh and then into the boat.”
Standford knew right away it was “Legacy” largemouth. Last year, he produced a 13.13-pound bass that he donated to the Toyota ShareLunker bass program. Roberts’ fish is the seventh bass Stanford has guided anglers to that were donated to the famed Texas ShareLunker operation, which is celebrating its 40th year in helping rejuvenate big bass in The Lone Star State.
Stanford called the ShareLunker hotline, which dispatched a crew with a live fish tank to bring Roberts’ bass back to a state hatchery. There, it will be spawned and the fry collected for later restocking. Once Robert’s bass has recovered from the spawning process, Roberts is invited back to O.H. Ivie lake to release it. For his efforts, Roberts will be rewarded with a free replica of his 13.785-pound bass.
Incredibly, this will be the second time Roberts’ fish as a “Legacy Largemouth” will be released back into Ivie Lake.
“Last March that same bass was caught off a spawning bed by my friend Kevin Robertson,” said Stanford, who owns Brady Stanford Fishing guide service. “The bass last year weighed 13.66-pounds and was taken by biologists to their hatchery, where it was spawned and produced fry. Then they placed a microchip in the bass and released it back into Ivie Lake.”
Toyota ShareLunker program coordinator Natalie Goldstrohm reports that released bass from the state restocking program often have been caught twice through the years.
“We place a chip called a ‘PIT Tag’ into our ShareLunker bass so if they’re caught a second time, we can verify it’s the same fish,” she explained to Wired2fish. “The tags are much like what people put in their pets for identification. Every year, we check bass that are caught for the program to learn if they’ve been caught previously. It’s not uncommon.
“Big bass being caught more than once really highlights the important work of the program with the help from anglers, marinas, and our hatchery personnel. Successfully spawning and restocking those fish has proved so beneficial for our bass, lakes, anglers and Texas.”
