TIM BROODFOOT LANDED THIS 13.48-POUND largemouth on 950-acre Lake Daniel on January 14. 2022. That fish qualified as Toyota ShareLunker #611, the third entry this year in the ShareLunker Legacy Category for 2022, proving that ShareLunker bass can come from small waterbodies. The Legacy category closes on March 31. (TPWD contributed photo)

by John Jefferson

Probably the largest freshwater fishing event and certainly one with a potentially large payout — and yet requires no large entry fee — the TPWD/Toyota ShareLunker competition tops the list!

All ya have to do is catch a largemouth weighing eight pounds or more. Your prize is being placed in a drawing for a $5,000 Bass Pro Shops shopping spree.

If ya get really lucky and catch a 13-pound or larger largemouth from January 1-March 31 and donate your bass for breeding, you get entered in a couple of drawings, for $5,000 shopping sprees, get a replica mount of your fish, some tackle, and a lot of notoriety. Some of the fame could last longer than the fishing tackle. It has been for a couple of guys, already.

But any angler will tell you that catching that big a bass is the hard part. Few have done it. Fewer still have done it twice. Thousands have tried unsuccessfully. I’m one.

And don’t think you have to fish Lake Fork, Sam Rayburn, or either of the two large Rio Grande lakes. The list of Lunker-producing lakes is a long one, and includes some smaller water bodies, too. Pictured is Tim Broodfoot who recently made the hallowed list with a 13.48-pound bass he caught on little-known Daniel Lake, east of Abilene.

The big story the past few years, however, has been the second coming of Lake O.H. Ivey, located southeast of Ballinger. It had been a productive lake in 2010, yielding 11 ShareLunkers, according to TPWD Inland Fisheries District Biologist, Lynn Wright, in San Angelo. Then, the infamous Texas drought struck, and the lake went down – waterwise, production-wise and otherwise. The drought that devastated the Hill Country in the ‘fifties lasted seven-years. This one lasted eight — except for a little bump in 2015.

In the fall, 2018, September and October rain raised Ivey 30-feet and covered over 10,000 acres of NEW LAKE. When prolonged droughts occur, Nature steps in to help. Nature abhors a vacuum. That exposed lakeshore doesn’t just sit there like a shoreline desert for long.

Vegetation gradually returns. The now newly flooded shoreline has morphed into new habitat and abundant nutrition for the fish. Wright described it as “Perfect conditions for (fish) growth.”

To steal from an old saying and change one word, “the proof is in the pitching.” And catching! Last year, O.H. Ivey produced TWELVE ShareLunkers between Jan. 1 and March 31. Two more thirteen-pounders were added after March 31 and still earned the anglers a chance for the shopping spree. “It was like fishing a New Lake,” Wright said.

This season, it’s off to a great start: Five of the first six ShareLunkers entered came from Ivey. Three others have been entered: Two from Possum Kingdom and the one from Daniel Lake. Will it continue?

Stockings of Florida bass will help for a while, as will production from existing fish. But Wright expects another drought, falling water, slower fishing.

Until then – FISH IT!

JJ