On Jan. 24, 1992, Barry St. Clair set the Texas standard for largemouth bass with an 18.18-pound lunker he pulled from Lake Fork. Although a state record, St. Clair’s fish fell well short of the 22-pound, 4-ounce Georgia behemoth George Perry caught in 1932. Perry sat alone atop the bass record pyramid until July 2, 2009, when Manabu Kurita hauled a 22-pound, 5-ounce monster from Lake Biwa in Japan. Although Kurita’s 29.4-inch giant bested Perry’s bass by an ounce, the two anglers share the all-tackle world record title because International Game Fish Association rules stipulate that any fish weighing less than 25 pounds must beat an existing record by at least two ounces.
If officials with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department have their way, the undisputed world record will return to the United States in a few years. In 1999, even before Kurita made his spectacular catch, Texas biologists began working on Operation World Record, which grew out of the Texas ShareLunker program.
“Operation World Record is an attempt to produce the next world record largemouth bass through a program of selective breeding using lunkers with pure Florida largemouth genes,” explained Allen Forshage, director of the TP&WD Texas Freshwater Fishing Center in Athens. “We started strategic planning for the Texas ShareLunker Program in 1999, but the selective breeding program didn’t really get off the ground until about 2005.”
Under the Toyota ShareLunker Program, anyone fishing Texas waters between Oct. 1 and April 30 each year who legally catches a bass weighing 13 pounds or more can donate that fish to the state for the breeding program. To donate a fish, call 1-888-784-0600 at any time. Within 12 hours, a TP&WD representative will come to take possession of the fish and bring it to a hatchery for breeding.
The angler can release the fish after spawning season or donate the fish permanently to the state. Either way, the angler receives a fiberglass replica of the bass, ShareLunker clothing and recognition. The person who catches the largest bass of the season also receives a lifetime Texas fishing license among other prizes.
Texas biologists established three goals for the program: Continue reading the rest of this article at Texas Fish & Game….