It’s big bass season in Texas. Two big largemouth bass over 13 pounds were caught within the past week in Texas lakes.
Travis McCollough of Abilene reeled in a 14.35-pound largemouth bass, a new waterbody record at Fort Phantom Hill Reservoir, on Thursday afternoon, followed by Drake Wadsworth of Stonewall, Louisiana, with 13.10-pound fish on Saturday at Toledo Bend.
O.H. Ivie and Alan Henry kicked off the collection season on Jan. 20 and 22, respectively.
McCollough was on the lake at 11:30 a.m. and fished in an area that he was familiar with. He had spent about 2.5 hours on the water before landing his fish of a lifetime.
“I’m a child of God and a Christian and I said Jesus, you need to give me a bite so I can go home with something to go on for the tournament that I have to fish Saturday at a different lake, and 10 minutes later I caught that fish,” said McCollough. “When I saw the fish, I knew it was over 10-pounds, and I just played her until she wore out. I didn’t use a net and the fish laid up sideways and I said this thing is huge. I got her in the boat, weighed the fish on my scale, and it said 14.20-pounds.”
McCollough was crawling a Strike King half-ounce green pumpkin football jig on the rocks, which is his method for fishing at Fort Phantom Hill.
“I swim it, I don’t pick it up and then let it drop, I swim it and move it, and those bass can’t stand it when you do that,” added McCollough.
Wadsworth traveled to Toledo Bend to compete in the Fishers of Men Tournament Trail on Saturday but didn’t necessarily have a specific game plan going in that morning.
“I found one fish sitting on the side of a stump that I knew was big, but didn’t know exactly how big she was,” said Wadsworth. “I marked the location and went back and checked her the Sunday before the tournament. I told my friend right before the tournament there’s a giant I found on a stump and sure enough, we pulled up that morning to where she was.”
It didn’t take Wadsworth long to land his fish of a lifetime.
“On my first cast I hooked her, and it didn’t really set in as to how big she was until she came up and jumped,” said Wadsworth. “She wrapped me around two different stumps, and I was stressing out because it was on a 10-pound line and we ended up fighting her for five to six minutes trying to get her out of these trees she was wrapped around. She finally came up and my friend scooped her up.”
