On April 28 I received a text from W2 Pro Team member Ed Hall. It was an image of himself with a truly giant largemouth, the likes of which one would normally expect to find in Texas or Florida. This one was from Virginia. At 13-7, it is one of the largest bass caught in the Commonwealth in years. What follows is Hall’s account of the experience.
My wife Stephanie and I had started fishing around 10:30 am as we had some things to do that morning. We were fishing a lake that we have fished for years, and as I stated in social media, it is a private lake, but does receive quite a bit of fishing pressure being surrounded by a community.
I had started that morning fishing for bass with a five-inch YUM Dinger and had caught several small bass. As I fished around, I saw several schools of crappie in the open water on my electronics, so we decided to switch it up and fish for a few crappies for dinner.
I switched to a drop shot for the crappie and was using a Berkley Power Bait Max Scent Flat Worm. It was a 3.6-inch and Gobyashi in color – a bait that I do very well with and caught my PB smallmouth on while fishing the St. Lawrence River.
We caught several crappie doing that and kept the four best ones to eat. While crappie fishing, I was also catching small bass on the same drop shot rig. As I fished around, I noticed several places where bluegill were spawning on shallow banks. It was about noon now and I went back to one of the deeper banks and backed off from the bank and started fishing out from the bluegill beds.
Stephanie asked me what I was going to do if I hooked a big bass on that little lure. I laughed. I had caught a couple better bass before I hooked this one.
For the big one I was fishing, and I felt a tick and saw the line jump and I set the hook with a seven-foot Berkley Shock medium action rod.
The bass immediately swam towards deeper water in front of the boat peeling drag. My first thought was I had a carp as there was no head shake and it was just heading deeper and deeper. Then I got that telltale sign that it was not a carp, as the line started to rise in the water quickly.
After I yelled, “Net!” I told Stephanie, “I guess we are going to find out what happens if I catch a big one on this!”
As the fish jumped out of the water, I could not believe what I just saw as I had never seen a fish this big before in my life.
Then she went down again with another long run swinging to the left, and I thought to myself there was no way I would ever land this fish on 10-pound braid with an eight-pound leader.
As she turned to the left she came back towards the boat heading toward the back with another long run.
At this point, Stephanie was working to untangle a crankbait that was hung in the net. And just as that bass jumped for the second time, Stephanie looked up and said that is the biggest fish she had ever seen and don’t let it get off.
By this time the fish had made several long runs around the boat and was almost back to where I had hooked her. She made one more run at the front of the boat going underneath the trolling motor. I knew this was going to be the point where she came off.
I shoved the rod in the water below the trolling motor to clear the line. Steph was standing ready with the net as she made her final run. I’m not sure how long it took but it seemed like forever getting her to the net.
Stephanie made the perfect scoop and met her head on about a foot and half below the surface as the fish was still not ready to come in the boat. But there she was in the net and the net was full!
Neither one of us could believe what had just happened. I may have been crying at this point with my head in my hands.
We have both caught a few nice fish in this lake in years past but had no idea there was a fish like this living there. As I reached down to unhook the fish it was all I could do to get my fingers on the hook as I was shaking so bad.
The 1/0 Rebarb hook was in a dental floss sized sliver of skin inside her mouth. I don’t know why the fish didn’t come off, but it didn’t.
We got her unhooked and placed her in the live well with it running constantly with TH Marine G Juice. I knew she was going to be released after being certified and didn’t want any harm to come to her.
This monster of a bass weighed in at 13.42 pounds, which is 13 pounds and 7 ounces. After taking several pictures (a few at a time) and then certified, she was released back into the same lake she came from. She was alive and well as she made two big tale beats and was gone.
In general, we are not numbers anglers, we try to target big fish, so this was quite a surprise and I doubt I will ever get a bigger PB. This was such a special day, and I am so thankful that the stars were all aligned.
