Lee Beuershausen, of Marble Falls, reeled in 13.34-pound ShareLunker 648 to set a new collection season record of Legacy Lunkers for O.H. Ivie, bringing the overall total for the year to 16.
This bass in particular, is the only fish of the 37 ShareLunkers that has been determined to be a recapture from previous seasons; some genetics data are still being analyzed.
Beuershausen was competing in the Bass Champs Tournament Saturday when he landed the catch of a lifetime. He had success catching fish at various locations on the lake during practice, but on Saturday afternoon, he headed back to one spot that showed promise. It didn’t take long for the action to heat up.
“I caught a couple of four-pounders; from there, I started catching them almost every cast using a Brush hog bait on a Carolina rig,” said Beuershausen. “The 13-pounder took the bait and, about two casts later, I reeled in another fish, around 12 pounds. That added a lot to our tournament bag really fast.”
The fish helped propel Beuershausen to the tournament championship on Saturday. In 2012, he landed a 13-pounder on Choke Canyon, but this is the first time for a firsthand interaction with the ShareLunker program.
“This experience with the ShareLunker program was fantastic,” said Beuershausen. “TPWD staff arrived quickly to collect her and were very careful handling the fish. We took really good care of the fish and it’s in great shape. I really respect what TPWD does and think this is an awesome program. The results of the work TPWD is doing are shown in our lakes. We never caught 25- to 30-pound bags up until the last 15–20 years since this program has been in place. This is a big deal to us.”
Story and photo from TPWD
