Texas’ O.H. Ivie Lake, near San Angelo, Texas, has been making headlines lately for the monstrous largemouth anglers have been pulling out this year, but over in Louisiana, another lake is producing some hogs.
Todd Herrington recently reeled in a 13.58-pound largemouth bass while fishing the Bussey Brake in Louisiana, good enough for the lake record.
“The weather may still be cool, but fishing in Louisiana is heating up! Not one, but TWO lake records have been broken in less than a week!
Congratulations to Todd Herrington of Collinston, who set the new lake record on Bussey Brake with a 13.58-pounder.”
However, it didn’t take long for that record to be broken, as Robert Rush reeled in a massive 15.36-pound behemoth just a couple weeks later. This biggie fry combo also makes the top 10 biggest ever recorded in the state of Louisiana, according to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
According to Outdoor Life, Rush only lives
21 miles away from Bussey Brake, and he released the fish after measuring and weighing it. He says he’ll more than likely be back to attempt to break his own record. He told the outlet:
I went to church that Sunday morning, and decided it was a good day to go to Bussey Brake for big pre-spawn bass. I called my buddy Mark Beasley to go with me, but he couldn’t make it. So, I loaded up my boat and headed there alone.”
The prize catch happened around 4 PM, when he caught a two-pound, and five-pound colored tube jig. He said it took him a minute to realize that he had something special on his hands:
“I went back to fishing for about 10 minutes, but the more I thought about that big fish, I figured I better get it weighed.”
Rush called an LDWF game warden to discuss what he’d just reeled in, when the warden told him there was a storage shed near the boat ramp of the public lake where there was a certified fish scale. The fish officially weighed 15.36-pounds, and was 26-inches in length and 22-inches in girth. The state record largemouth was caught back in 1994 from Caney Lake, and weighed 15.97-pounds.
“LDWF’s scales have gotten a workout this month….Yet another lake record has been broken. Congratulations to Robert Rush, who set a new lake record on Bussey Brake with a 15.36 pounder! Robert’s fish also ranks as No. 8 on the Louisiana top ten list. That’s the second time in a month that the Bussey Brake’s lake record has been broken! Most of Bussey Brake’s production is due to the large number of pure Florida strain brood fish that were provided by LDWF’s own Booker Fowler fish hatchery, in combination with excellent habitat.”