Louisiana anglers Drake Wadsworth, 21, and his buddy Maguire Parker were entered in a 161-boat team bass tournament Saturday on the famed 185,000-acre Toledo Bend Reservoir that sits on the Texas-Louisiana state line. Both anglers know the lake well, and they were fast into fish on Feb. 7.
“I caught a 5-pounder pretty quick, at a spot I’ve fished a lot over the years on Toledo Bend,” Wadsworth tells Outdoor Life. “I spotted a fish high up in flooded timber [on sonar] that I knew was a big fish. I told Maguire that if I caught this fish, it was gonna change the day for us.”
With spinning tackle and 16-pound braided line, Wadsworth cast to the bass. He was throwing a shad-colored 6-inch soft plastic CrushCity Freeloader on a ¼-ounce jig head. The largemouth slammed the lure and immediately jumped completely out of the water.
“It felt like I hooked a semi-truck. Right away she wrapped me around two trees, and that’s when I realized I forgot my net,” says the 21-year-old oil and gas field worker from Grand Cane, Louisiana. “We were in a panic as I fought to get her out of the trees.
Wadsworth made three or four laps around the boat to get his bass out of the timber as the fish dove and surged around trees. The fish also tried to wrap line around the boat motor. He estimates it took 5 minutes for the fish to tire before he could bring it alongside his 21-foot Skeeter, where Maguire grabbed it.
Maguire managed without the net, instead lifting the fish aboard with both hands. They were shocked at its size. With the scale onboard the boat, Wadsworth weighed the fish at just a shade under 13 pounds.
The bass went into their live well and they went back to fishing.
“We caught 20 or 25 bass, then ran to the weigh in [with the five we kept for weigh-in]. We had to carry the big bass alone in one bag, with the other four fish in a separate live bag for the weigh in. I don’t think I ever had to use two bags for five tournament fish before.”
Tourney scales showed Wadsworth’s bass weighed 12.95 pounds, and their five-fish limit weighed a total 30.13 pounds. Maguire and Wadsworth pocketed $5,000 for the big fish and taking second place overall.
Still, Wadsworth wanted to weigh the big bass a third time. If his bass did weigh 13 pounds, he could call the Texas ShareLunker program staff and donate his fish for spawning at their hatchery.
The long-running and popular program collects big bass from Texas waters, spawns them in a state hatchery, and then releases the fry into Lone Star State waters. Anglers who donate bass weighing over 13 pounds to the program are eligible for valuable prizes, and they get a free replica bass mount of their fish. Additionally, they can meet ShareLunker staff after spawning to return the fish to the lake where it was caught.
After the tournament Wadsworth put his live big bass in his boat livewell and drove to Keith’s Toledo Bend Tackle store in near Hemphill, Tex. There it was weighed on another scale, which agreed with their first measurement: His bass just tipped the scales over 13 pounds. So Wadsworth phoned the ShareLunker staff, who dispatched a truck with a live tank to weigh, measure and retrieve the fish for hatchery spawning.
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The ShareLunker folks weighed Wadsworth’s bass at 13.10 pounds, with a 24.76-inch length and a 20.5-inch girth. It’s the biggest largemouth bass the young angler has ever caught.
“I thank the Lord for that great fish,” he says. “I can’t wait to be back on Toledo Bend after she’s spawned to release her.”