An early spring cold front hit West Texas on Sunday, when part-time bass guide Lawrence Lee and his client Monnie Henslee were out on J.B Thomas Reservoir. Lee figured the weather change would push pre-spawn bass out from shallow water and into deeper areas near the mouths of creeks, and they hit the water around 6:30 that morning.
“We started hunting for big bass using [forward-facing] sonar, and we found some nice ones,” Lee tells Outdoor Life. “The bass had moved out from the shallows, and we found the bigger fish in 20 to 25 of water.”
Lee was showing Henslee how effective forward-facing sonar can be, and they found some more lunkers on the lake that afternoon.
“Monnie caught a bass just under 10 pounds that day, and he had some bigger fish on, but we didn’t get ‘em,” says Lee, 35, from Toler. “We fished pretty hard, and about five p.m. Monnie said his back hurt, so he laid down on the boat deck.”
While Henslee was lying down, Lee kept looking for fish with his sonar and eventually pinpointed a big fish in deeper water. He told Henslee, who said Lee should catch it. So, Lee cast a 5-inch MegaBass MagDraft swimbait with a heavy 7.5-foot rod and a baitcaster spooled with 25-pound test fluorocarbon. Because of the lure’s slow sink rate, he had to lead the bass a good bit.
“I cast my lure off my sonar screen so it would drop to the bass’ level as it moved along,” Lee explains. “Leading a bass with a lure like that is sort of like leading a running deer with a rifle. You just kind of get a feel for it.”
As the lure sank, Lee turned his boat and watched the bass on sonar. By the time his lure appeared on the screen, it was on a collision course with the cruising fish. Still watching the screen, he saw the bass speed up toward the bait.
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“I pulled the lure a little bit … like a baitfish trying to get away. It was like a cat chasing a mouse that was trying to get away.”
The bass took the lure and Lee set the hook. But he didn’t think the bass was much over 10 pounds.
“I’ve caught 90 bass weighing at least 10 pounds, and I have a pretty good feel for big bass,” he says. “But I didn’t know she was a 13-pounder until I got her in the boat.”
Lee netted the bass and weighed it twice on a boat scale at 13.8 pounds. Then he put the fish in his boat’s well-aerated livewell and called the Texas ShareLunker hotline, letting them know he had a 13-pounder to donate to the state’s hatchery program. A couple hours later, the ShareLunker team met Lee and Henslee at a boat ramp, where his fish was weighed on a certified scale at 13.12 pounds.
It’s the second bass weighing over 13 pounds that Lee has donated to the state for spawning in its program. And like the other Legacy-class fish he donated, he’ll be notified when the largemouth is ready to be released back into the lake. He’ll also receive a replica mount of the fish.
“I’ve caught five bass from J.B. Thomas weighing over 13 pounds during the last few years,” says Lee. “But three of them were outside the time frame when they collect spring spawning bass with roe for hatchery work.
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His 13.12 pounder measured 24.5 inches long with a 20.5-inch girth.
“The fish on J.B. Thomas are really dense — they’re short, fat and heavy. The lake has plenty of shad and crappie forage, and it’s so dark in color we call it the ‘mud pit.’”
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