Phil Putnam of Denver had booked a two-man guided trip with Jay Greishaw, owner of “High Stakes Bassin” in Zapata, Texas. But as the February, 2025 date drew near, the buddy that Putnam was going to fish with had to cancel.
In his place, Putnam invited Dave Holland of Longmont, Colorado to accompany him to tap famed 30,000-acre Sugar Lake, Mexico. The massive bass-rich reservoir is located just south of the Rio Grande River and the Texas border, west of the town of Reynosa, Mexico.
“It was prime time for catching huge spring bass on Sugar Lake,” Greishaw tells Wired2fish. “But we had tough fishing for a couple days because a huge cold front pushed in and heavy bass moved out of the shallows.
“We caught some bass, but not the size we were hoping for, and well short of a 10-pounder that Dave wanted.”
Greishaw said Holland had never caught a double-digit largemouth, despite fishing dozens of choice lakes about everywhere he could. It was a 40-year quest for Holland and a fishing dream he just hadn’t been able to achieve.
“One good bass he caught early in our trip was a chunky 7 pounder,” says Greishaw, a guide for the last 15 of his 48 years. “Dave was so excited he thought it might have been that magic 10-pounder. But it was shy a few pounds.”
Finally, about mid-day on Feb. 17, 2025 Holland cast a Yum “Dinger” in Mardi Gras color to some flooded brush near a deep drainage area that Greishaw had located with sonar.
“He set the hook and the fish swam out fast away from the brush into the deep drain – thank goodness,” Greishaw recalled. “Dave fought it well with a 7.5-foot flipping rod, bait-casting tackle and 25-pound test fluorocarbon line.
“The bass was strong and fast. It was a miracle it came out of the brush to open water.”
In short order Holland had his bass up and near the boat, where it wallowed and they saw how huge it was. Then the angler drew it closer, and Greishaw scooped it up in a landing net, depositing it in his boat.
“Is that a 10-pounder?” asked Holland while looking at his bass in their boat.
“It’s way bigger than 10-pounds,” replied Greishaw. “I’ve never seen a bass that big.”
The anglers quickly weighed the largemouth on a hand scale in their boat. But the scale bottomed out at 15 pounds.
“I had another scale and we weighed it again at 15-pounds, 14-ounces,” said Greishaw. “We took a few photos and quickly released it right where Dave caught it.”
The thick body, roe-swollen bass measured 23.5-inches long, with an incredible matching girth measurement of 23.25 inches.
“It was so big, it was square,” Holland said happily, who plans to have a replica mount made of his Mexican double-digit weight dream bass.
