ATHENS, Texas — It's Jurassic Park meets real life every winter in Texas featuring the Texas Parks and Wildlife's 2024 Toyota ShareLunker program already off to a hot start!
Every year the quest to create bigger and better bass fishing in the state of Texas places science front and center.
The science begins the moment ShareLunker coordinator, Natalie Goldstrohm, receives a phone call when a ShareLunker is caught.
The truck Goldstrohm drives to meet the angler is well-equipped with everything necessary to make sure it is brought back to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center alive.
Goldstrohm calls the truck a mobile fish hospital or an 'aquatic ambulance' featuring a live well in the bed of the pickup truck is filled with water and the right amount of oxygen.
Historically, the biggest bass are caught between January 1 through the end of March. Legacy class ShareLunkers weigh at least 13 pounds; typically older, female bass.
“Gosh, you got to remember that these bass are probably 10 years old. They just went through the stress of being caught, transported to a waystation location, transported across the state, and then put in one of our Texas Freshwater Fisheries lunker bunker," Goldstrohm said.
The lunker bunker isn’t where this story ends, rather it’s where science takes over.
The ShareLunker program began creating bigger bass by pairing genetically big bass with selectively chosen male bass to spawn even bigger, better bass.
“We're finding some really interesting things with our genetics. We're seeing great relationships, mother daughter relationship, Sister siblings, recapture recaptures, and so the information that we've received so far, has been incredible," Goldstrohm said.
It sounds incredible considering geneticists study fish scales and use DNA to track lineage -but there is a missing link.
Texas Park and Wildlife Department is challenging fishers to find samples from bass weighing eight pounds or measuring in 24 inches. The incentive this year is prizes for citizen scientists to turn in more scales to be studied.
“But our samples coming in from our anglers has been somewhat limited. So, this is just a way to, to get more information from those anglers, and try to find out more interesting genetics information," Goldstrohm said.
In January, Lawrence Lee landed a legacy lunker at the J.B. Thomas Reservoir located in West Texas.
“So that's 76 public reservoirs in the state of Texas that has produced the 13 pound bass that's been shared with the program for spawning purposes,” Goldstrohm said.
Genetics are great but perhaps a bigger accomplishment is fish health. Last year marked the second consecutive year that every ShareLunker brought to the lunker bunker was safely returned to their home lake.
“And that's just a testament our anglers are great at bass care, when they come here to our hatcheries, they're getting the best bass care here as well. And then when they're released into the reservoir, they're there and available for others to catch them as well. Gotta catch that fish of a lifetime," Goldstrohm said.
So far, three ShareLunkers have been caught this year by two Mineola anglers at O.H. Ivie Lake on the same day in January.
With that said, fishing should only continue to grow in February, known to produce the most prized ShareLunkers.