Avid young bass angler Grant Gould was casting from shore at a small, unnamed public southwest Iowa lake the afternoon of November 5. He and his stepdad Jimmy Lawrence had gone to the secret lake near their home in Bedford, Iowa.
“I think Grant would rather fish than eat or sleep,” Grant’s father Danny Gould tells Wired2fish. “Grant was just walking the shoreline, casting out for bass. He caught a few small fish, then he hooked something a whole lot heavier than the others.”
The largemouth was powerful and fought deep, staying down in a lake hole, according to Grant. A strong cold front had moved through the area the previous day, and Grant believes the bass were actively feeding for the coming winter.
“The bass never jumped – just dogged down, fighting Grant,” said Danny. “He finally got the fish close to shore, got a hold of it, and he went nuts. He called me and sent me photos. He was wild with joy.”
The anglers weighed the fish about an hour later at an even 9-pounds, with a 22.75-inch length and a 19-inch girth. Grant will have a wall mount made of the fish. The bass was kept so a taxidermist can do an identical mount of the largemouth.
Grant’s bass is huge by any standard, but especially in Midwest rural Iowa. The state record bigmouth is not that much larger at 10.75-pounds, caught in 1984 by Patricia Zaerr from Lake Fisher.
Grant is a sophomore high schooler who plays football and also competes as a wrestler.
“But he’s a maniac for fishing,” says dad Danny.
Grant caught his bass using a Berkley “Powerbait Craw Fatty” in green-pumpkin, red flake color. He’d rigged it weedless Texas-style, with a 3/16-ounce bullet slip weight and a 4/0 wide gap hook. His Lew’s “Speed Spool” bait-casting reel, 17-pound test mono line on a Quantum medium-heavy action rod worked well for the young angler.
“Grant has been on the water since he was six months old and has fished all his life,” says Danny. “He’s caught lots of bass weighing 4 to 6 pounds and always wanted to catch one over 8 pounds.
“He sure reached that goal with his 9-pounder.”
