The wind was howling and the fishing was tough Saturday morning, according to well-known bass guide Josh Jones, who was fishing O.H. Ivie Lake that day with his pal from Minnesota, Nolan Sprengeler. After searching the lake hard with Jones’ forward-facing sonar, they finally found a big school of bass 15-feet deep on a submerged point.
That was around mid-morning, and it was still cold and windy. So, they decided to take a lunch break and headed for Elm Creek Marina. The lakefront establishment in Voss has become Jones’ home away from home during this time of year, when he leaves Oklahoma to chase huge bass on the sprawling Texas reservoir.
“We got back on the lake about 3 p.m. and using sonar found the same big school of giant bass where we’d found them on the point that morning,” the 38-year-old angler tells Outdoor Life. “Nolan caught the first bass that afternoon. It weighed just under 10 pounds and we released it right away.”
Jones hooked their second bass of day, which turned out to be their last. It came from the same school of lunker largemouths they’d been watching on the screen. He was using a heavy rod made for throwing big swimbaits, along with a Bates 100 baitcaster reel spooled with 22-pound fluorocarbon. He chose not to share the name of the lure he was using.
“There were about 20 bass, all huge fish, 10 pounds or more,” he says. “I didn’t think it was that big until we saw it at the surface and Nolan started yelling, ‘ShareLunker, ShareLunker!’”
Jones worked the fish close to the boat and Nolan netted it fast. Then they put it in the boat’s livewell. Judging from experience, they knew the bass was at least 13 pounds, making it eligible for the ShareLunker program as a Legacy Class largemouth. The highly successful state-run program collects huge bass during spawning season so their offspring can be stocked in public waters across the state.
“It was so darn windy I couldn’t get an accurate weight of the fish because the boat was bouncing around,” explains Jones, who’d been through the process before. He called the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s hotline and they returned to Elm Creek Marina with the fish still in the livewell.
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Once there, they moved the giant bass over to the marina’s larger aerated tank. Biologists arrived soon after to place the bass in a portable live tank and take it to TPWD’s hatchery in Athens. But first, they put the fish on a scale, which showed 13.51 pounds.
That makes the heavy fish the fifth Legacy Class (13-plus-pound) bass that Jones has caught and donated to the ShareLunker program. He says that in total, he’s caught and released 15 bass of that caliber over the last six years, all from O.H. Ivie Lake. Ten of them were landed outside the spawning season, running January through March, when TWPD accepts donations to the program.
Jones’ biggest O.H. Ivie largemouth weighed 15.4 pounds and was caught in 2021. His next largest weighed 15.1.
Jones says his big-bass run started during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic six years ago. He’d just been laid off from his job at a cable company and decided to dedicate his life to catching big bass. Ivie turned out to be the best place to do that, and the big Central Texas reservoir has provided for him ever since. The lake’s heavyweight largemouths have also helped him build a career as a guide and social media influencer.
“Ivie Lake is a special big bass spot,” he says. “The habitat is outstanding, and the state manages it so well. Right now, the water is high, and conditions are perfect for great fishing in the future – I’d say for at least five years.”
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