Fourteen-year-old Bennett Bullard has big-bass ambitions. The young man has been fishing in tournaments since he was 10, and one day he plans on winning the Bassmaster Classic. Bennett knows he still has a lot to learn to achieve his lofty goals, but after catching a monster 10-pound largemouth to win the Arkansas High School Bassers Tournament on Lake Ouachita, he might be further along than he thought. Especially since he had to hook the same fish twice.
“What I ended up doing to land that fish was something I had never really tried before,” Bennett tells Outdoor Life. “I feel like it’s given me a whole new level of confidence because it’s shown me that I can still find the fish I’m looking for even when things get tough.”
Bennett fished the one-day tournament on March 14 with his partner, Shad McClure, and his father, Cullen. The three launched their boat that morning and planned to fish the same way they always had. Trolling through deep sections of submerged timber, Bennett and Shad tried to sight fish for cruising largemouth. The strategy had worked for them in the past, but on that day, it just wasn’t working.
“Sight fishing for roamers is one of my favorite ways to fish,” says Bennett. “But that day it just wasn’t producing like it should. We only caught one decent two-pounder and a bunch of big crappie, and by mid-morning, we decided it was time to make a new plan.”
With water temperatures in the low 60’s and only four hours left to fish, Bennett and Shad motored over to a new spot on the west end of the lake where the water was shallower. The two young anglers were hoping to find some bass on their beds, and in the stained water, they decided their best option to find them was with Livescope.
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“We really weren’t expecting much,” Bullard says. “I hadn’t used Livescope a whole lot and didn’t know exactly what I should be looking for, but we knew that if we wanted to win we had to do something completely different.”
Bennett and Shad put down their scope and began to pan a likely looking area. Soon enough, they found a huge bass holding in around 7 feet of water. This fish wasn’t moving much but they did see it chase off a couple bluegills. Figuring it was a big female on a bed, Bennett cast toward the fish and immediately hooked a small male bass, confirming his suspicions.
“When I caught the male, I knew we were on to something,” Bennett says. “So, I flipped my Yum Spine Craw out there again right off her nose and I saw her eat it on the scope. I set the hook hard, but my line must have been frayed or something because she almost immediately broke off and I thought it was all over.”
Discouraged, Bennett and Shad backed off a bit and watched the fish return to the same position, giving Bennett enough time to calm down and re-rig with the same lure. Then they moved back into casting range to try and get a second shot at the monster.
“She was really locked down on that bed and wouldn’t move for anything, especially after hooking her earlier. So, I started working the lure slowly, trying to get it to pop up right in front of her face, hoping to make her mad.”
After several failed attempts to get the bass to react, Bennett finally made the perfect cast and saw the big bass grab his lure again on the scope.
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“She took it in her mouth and started swimming sideways,” Bullard said. “I set the hook and she started going crazy. She immediately jumped and that’s when I realized how big she was and I started yelling and screaming. She jumped three more times before my dad managed to get her in the net. It was just awesome.”
Realizing they had a tournament winner and a potential Arkansas Legacy Lunker, the boys immediately put the bass into the live well and motored back to the dock. They contacted Arkansas Game and Fish officials, who came out to collect the bass after Bennett and Shad weighed it in for the tournament.
The monster bass weighed 10.27 pounds, giving Bennett and Shad a 17.28-pound five fish-limit and putting them in first place. The bass was then transported alive by biologists with the new Arkansas Legacy Lunker program, which collects trophy-sized bass during spawning season so they can be spawned at a hatchery for stocking across the state. Bennett’s fish is the 15th entry this year and the first bass to come out of Lake Ouachita.
“It’s such a cool thing to have been a part of,” Bullard says. “This whole experience has taught me so much about bass fishing and tournament fishing. I want to make bass fishing a career and catching that bass just gave me a ton of confidence and showed me that I’m on the right path.”
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