TYLER, Texas — Texas is the big bass capital of the world; more 13-pound plus bass are caught here every year than anywhere else.
This is thanks to a program called ShareLunker, created and run by the Texas Parks Wildlife Department. A ShareLunker is a genetic gamefish that is bred to be large.
Kyle Brookshear is the ShareLunker program coordinator.
“The bottom line of what we hope to accomplish is bigger better bass for the next generation," Brookshear said.
Brookshear oversees the program, now in its 36th year.
“So what we’re trying to do is target these trophy sized bass and continue to produce these in large quantities for more anglers to catch throughout the state of Texas," Brookshear said.
Texas ShareLunker season runs from Jan. - March, and that is when female bass are breeding. If you catch a ShareLunker weighing more than 13 pounds, you’re urged to call the ShareLunker program where their biologists will come to the lake and retrieve it.
“We have a response team we’ve developed throughout the years of management and biologists that are over those reservoirs," Brooshear said. "So, if you catch one at Lake Fork for instance, we’ve got a management team that’s in charge of Lake Fork. They help us collect that fish and get here as fast we can”.
Once ShareLunkers are collected from Texas lakes, they're brought to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens.
Tony Owens is the hatchery manager at TFFC and runs the "lunker bunker", where ShareLunkers stay until spawning season starts.
“It’s our job to get them acclimated to this place, a new environment, treat them if they need to be treated," says Owens. “That’s when we’ll pair these big females with male bass that are off-springs of past ShareLunker spawns."
When the weather warms and fish start naturally spawning, the TFFC pairs selective breeding with DNA to create these large fish. It’s hereditary genetics that all started with ShareLunker number 1, a fish affectionately called "Ethel".
Tom Lang is the director of the TFFC and described how Ethel started the program.
"And so Ethel was donated to the program," said Lang. "She gave her offspring to make bigger better bass for generations to come and that’s what’s happened.”
There’s a lineage here of success here, similar to raising thoroughbred racehorses.
Brookshear shares an example of a fish caught in the early 1990s.
“That fish was collected and selectively bred at this facility," Brookshear. "Its off-spring were stocked into a water body in Texas and for five generations that same thing has happened over and over again."
According to the program, 2021 was a record year for the ShareLunkers, more fish were collected than any other year. The 2022 season is off to a hot start with six fish collected as of Feb. 10.
There should be plenty more as water temperatures begin to warm, leading to more activity as the spawning season begins.