Tiny Lake Austell in Northeast Arkansas’ Village Creek State Park is a well-known big bass spot. It regularly gives up 8-pound largemouths, and Kevin Riney believed he could catch a bass weighing more than 10-pounds from Austell. That fish would be the first bass entered in the new-this-year Arkansas “Legacy Lunker Bass” program.
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Legacy Lunker Program is modeled after Texas’ famed Toyota ShareLunker program, focusing on growing more double-digit largemouth bass by combining Florida-strain genetics with advanced fisheries management. Anglers who catch live bass weighing 10 pounds or more from January through March can donate those fish to the program, where biologists will spawn them in a controlled environment to produce large numbers of genetically superior fry. Both the fingerlings and the adult female bass are then returned to the waters where they were caught, strengthening local trophy potential.
The program is already generating excitement among Arkansas anglers, especially on warm-water lakes like Hamilton, Millwood, Ouachita, and DeGray, where Florida bass are thriving. In addition to building better bass fisheries, the Legacy Lunker Program will recognize anglers who catch standout fish of all black bass species and collect valuable genetic data to guide future management. While Arkansas may never rival Texas in sheer trophy numbers, fisheries officials believe the program will dramatically increase the number of 10-pound-plus bass statewide—creating a lasting legacy and elevating Arkansas’ reputation as a premier bass fishing destination.
“I was trying to catch a big fish that would be a ‘Legacy’ largemouth,” Riney told Wired2fish. “I launched my 21-foot Triton bass boat into the lake at dawn, looking for big bass on my LiveScope sonar.”
Using a huge 9-inch custom-made hard-body glide bait in shad color, Riney started his solo hunt for big fish.
“That morning I marked a lot of bass on sonar, and I spent my time trying to tease them into striking in 52-degree water,” said Riney, a 45-year-old sales representative for Hugg+Hall Equipment. “There were a lot of big gizzard shad schools, and bass were hanging around them suspended in deep water.”
That morning he caught an 8-pound bass, a pair of 6-pounders, and a 5-pound fish. But a 10-pound-or-better bass still eluded him – until mid-day.
“I [sonar] marked two big bass down about 8 feet, and I made a cast with my big glide bait to them,” he explained. “They came up to look at my lure, which I could watch on my scope. I think because there were two fish they were competing to get to my lure.”
Riney says there were some shad nearby that he could see on sonar. As the bass got closer to his lure and the real shad, the baitfish jetted away.
“It became a cat-and-mouse game,” said the angler from Jonesboro, Arkansas. “When the real shad left, I stopped my plug. One of the bass got closer to my lure, and I twitched the plug. The bass slammed it.”
Riney used a heavy-action custom-made 8-foot plug rod, with a baitcasting reel spooled with 65-pound braided line and no leader. But when he slammed the rod hard and fast to set the lure hooks, the bass didn’t budge.
“It was solid, it didn’t move at all on the hook set,” he said. “I finally got the fish headed my way, and when it was near the boat I saw it was the Legacy bass I wanted.
“I had my net nearby, got her head up, and the bass barely fit inside it. I knew it was a better than 10-pound bass. I quickly weighed it on my Bubba hand scale, and it registered just over 12 pounds.”
He immediately put the bass in his boat’s aerated livewell and phoned the Arkansas Legacy bass hotline (833-948-2277) to report he had a bass exceeding 10 pounds for the program.
Right away, state program folks dispatched a truck with an aerated tank to Lake Austell to meet Riney and collect his live bass for spawning at a fish hatchery. Fry from that large bass eventually will be stocked in Arkansas lakes.
It took about two hours for fisheries personnel to reach Lake Austell. When they did, Riney’s bass was alive and well, and officially weighed 12.04-pounds.
“It’s pretty special for me to have caught the first Arkansas Legacy bass in the first year of the program,” said Riney. “After they spawn my bass in a hatchery, they’ll let me know and I’ll meet them back at Lake Austell to release my bass back where she belongs.”
For participating in the Arkansas Legacy Lunker Bass program, Riney will receive a free replica mount of his fish, and a chance in a lottery drawing to win a $75,000 newly rigged 21-foot Xpress bass boat with 250-horsepower Yamaha outboard. All Arkansas Legacy anglers will be part of an annual bass boat drawing, which is sponsored by Xpress boats.
Since Riney caught his Legacy bass, his 20-year -son Dylan has been fishing extra hard to catch a Legacy bass, too.
“He’s caught two big 9 pounders, one that weighed 9.5 pounds,” said Kevin. “All that bass had to have done to be a 10-pounder was to have eaten a big gizzard shad, and Dylan would have been the second angler to catch a 10-pound minimum Legacy largemouth.
“That would be really something if my son and I were one-and-two for the first year of Arkansas’ Legacy bass program.”
