Caleb Bell and his buddy Alex Rudd joked that they were going to catch a state record Alabama bass on the morning of November 18 last year.
“Alex knew the spot where he said some giants lived, and that’s where we headed that morning,” Bell tells Wired2fish. “We launched our boat and caught some live gizzard shad, then free-lined them with light 6-pound test fluorocarbon leaders. The water was really clear and those Bama bass are smart and shy.”
Bell was using spinning tackle with 15-pound test braided line tied to a 6-pound leader when he hooked his big ‘Bama bass.
“I didn’t think it was that big at first,” said Bell, a 35-year-old fishing guide from Hixson, Tenn. “But as soon as I hooked it, Alex went nuts. He knew it was a state record fish when it jumped.”
The bass jumped several times, then crossed a log that Bell was sure would snap his line. But the fish swam out of trouble near the log, then jumped again by the boat.
“When that fish came completely out near us, I knew Alex was right,” Bell said. “I knew the fish was huge, and likely a record.”
After they boated the fish and put it in their boat live well, the anglers called friends who work with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA).
“They told us where to take it for a certified weight,” Bell explained. “It was a feed store out in the middle of nowhere. They weighed it and had the paperwork already there to fill out for state record processing.”
Bell says a couple fisheries folks from TWRA showed up at the feed store and took a fin clip and scale samples of the bass for a positive ID of the fish species. Photos were made of the bass. Then Caleb and Alex returned to the boat ramp into the Ocoee and released the fish.
“That river area is jammed with big ‘Bama bass,” Bell explained. “We had four fish that day each over 6 pounds. Our best five bass weighed 31-pounds.”
The anglers returned to the same Ocoee area a week later with their wives and kids and thumped Bama bass again. All fish were caught on live shad baits, and the youngsters each had a bass weighing over five pounds.
Bell is convinced there are bigger Alabama bass in the Ocoee, and believes an 8-pounder is likely living there.
The Alabama bass, native to the Mobile River Basin in Alabama and Georgia, has become an invasive species in several Tennessee waterways. First detected in Tennessee in the early 2010s, this species likely spread through unauthorized angler introductions, either intentionally for sport fishing or accidentally via live-well transfers. While Alabama bass are considered an invasive fish species in Tennessee, the state does keep records for them.
DNA from scale and fin samples from Bell’s fish confirmed it was an Alabama bass, after university testing. It has just now been certified that the fish is a new state record. Bell’s bass tops the old state Alabama bass record of 7-pounds, caught in 2014 by Shane McKee from Tennessee’s Parksville Reservoir.
Bell and Rudd are planning a return trip to the Ocoee this month to try for another big autumn Bama bass.
“They are a hard fighting, beautiful bass, likely the prettiest I’ve ever seen or caught,” Bell said. “I’m thinking I’ll have a replica mount made of that fish because they’re so bright colored.”
