Packing on the Pounds

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  • Packing on the Pounds
    Packing on the Pounds
  • Sharp’s 11 pounder (left) was his final fish of the day. It enabled him to toss his smallest fish, a 5 1/2 pounder (right), back in the lake. Courtesy/Anthony Sharp via Matt Williams
    Sharp’s 11 pounder (left) was his final fish of the day. It enabled him to toss his smallest fish, a 5 1/2 pounder (right), back in the lake. Courtesy/Anthony Sharp via Matt Williams
  • Village Mills angler Anthony Sharp (far right) had a magical morning on Sam Rayburn Reservoir Feb. 15 when he reeled in a five-fish limit weighing 40 pounds, 6 ounces during an FLW Bass Fishing League event. Sharp’s catch, which took about an hour to assemble, may be the heaviest single-day weight ever recorded by one angler during a Sam Rayburn tournament. It ranks as the third heaviest in BFL history. Courtesy/Anthony Sharp via Matt Williams
    Village Mills angler Anthony Sharp (far right) had a magical morning on Sam Rayburn Reservoir Feb. 15 when he reeled in a five-fish limit weighing 40 pounds, 6 ounces during an FLW Bass Fishing League event. Sharp’s catch, which took about an hour to assemble, may be the heaviest single-day weight ever recorded by one angler during a Sam Rayburn tournament. It ranks as the third heaviest in BFL history. Courtesy/Anthony Sharp via Matt Williams
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Texas angler’s 40-6 catch ranks among biggest bags

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Anthony Sharp of Village Mills knew he had stumbled across a good spot. He just didn’t know how sweet it was until he gave it a serious taste test shortly after blast off in the FLW Bass Fishing League derby held Feb. 15 on Sam Rayburn Reservoir.

Sharp, a 42-year-old pipeline worker, claims he caught a 6 pounder off the spot during a small club tournament the weekend before and saw several others on his electronics that refused to bite.

“I pulled in there the Friday morning before the BFL and saw several fish were back in there,” Sharp said. “I made one cast and caught an 8 pounder.”

Sharp played it smart at that point. He left the area hoping the fish would hang tight until the tournament got underway the following morning.

“I told my wife I thought I had shot at winning, but I really had no idea what I was on,” he said. “All I could do was hope they stayed put.”

Turns out Sharp was on to a mother lode of heavyweight pre-spawn bass. In fact, he reeled in a five-fish limit so enormous in size that it sounds like something straight out of a fairy tale book.

The remarkable catch weighed a whopping 40 pounds, 6 ounces — an 8.12 average. Sharp crushed second place by more than 21 pounds and won $7,000. It’s the biggest single day, individual tournament limit reported from Texas waters since George Herr caught 40.45 on Toledo Bend in 2014.

Sharp did the damage with a chartreuse/blue back Strike King 8XD crankbait and a Carolina rigged green pumpkin magic Zoom Baby Brush Hog. He described the magical spot as flat section at the end of a point in about 17-20 feet of water. The point is flanked by a drain on one side and 40 feet of water on the other.

Although a few larger sacks have been reported elsewhere across Texas and beyond, Sharp’s catch may be the biggest five-fish bag ever weighed during a tournament on Sam Rayburn by one angler. Interestingly, the limit was anchored by a double-digit fish Sharp didn’t even bother to weigh for big bass. He won the $1,000 big bass pot with his second-biggest bass, a 9-14.

“I was so shook up, I grabbed the wrong fish out of the bag by mistake,” he chuckled. “The bigger one weighed close to 11, but it really didn’t matter. This whole deal freaked me out. I went out that day thinking I might catch a high 20s sack. To go out and catch 40 pounds was unreal. I had no idea I had that much. I still can’t believe it.”

The magic happened really quick, too. Sharp said it took about an hour to assemble a limit of bass so plump they wouldn’t fit in the starboard side livewell of his Triton bass boat.

To remedy the dilemma, he contacted tournament director Brad Callihan by cell phone and asked for permission to use some space in the port side livewell reserved for his co-angler, Antwon Harris of DeRidder, Louisiana.

“I’ve never gotten a phone call like that, but it was a pretty good problem for him to have,” Callihan said. “I was really expecting him to have 30 pounds or something like that. I had to do a double check when I put them on the scales. Catching 40 pounds is a once-in-a-lifetime bag for anybody.”

OTHER MEGA SACKS

Interestingly, Sharp’s mega sack isn’t the heaviest ever brought to the scales in an individual bass tournament.

It is the third heaviest in BFL history behind 40-14 weighed in 2011 by Rogne Brown at Lake Chickamauga in Tennessee, and 40-11 caught in 2015 by Casey Martin at Alabama’s Lake Guntersville. Arizona bass pro Dean Rojas has held the BASS all-time five bass weight record since 2001 with 45-2 at Florida’s Lake Toho.

Keith Combs of Huntington set the FLW all-time single day weight record in 2010 with a monster Lake Falcon limit weighing 41-3. The biggest single day individual weight ever recorded in a Texas tournament (44-4) was caught in April 2008 at Falcon by Florida’s Terry Scroggins.

Even bigger totals have been brought to the scales in Texas team events. Anglers compete two-to-aboat in team derbies. Teams are allowed to weigh 5 fish.

The biggest team limit I’m aware of came Feb. 22, when Danny Iles and Brian Shook weighed in 49.31 in a Texas Team Trail event on Sam Rayburn.Terry Oldham and Jamie Buitron hold the Bass Champs all-time record with a 45.45 catch in 2012, also from Falcon.

Lake Conroe has kicked out its share of big bags in the past, but none to compare to the 45.10-pound limit brought to the scales in Jan. 2011 by Willis anglers Dusty Schultz and Rusty Lawson.