Alan Henry coughs up 14.36-pound ShareLunker

We’re still a few weeks away from the heart of another big bass season in most of Texas, but apparently no one told Blake Cockrell of Ransom Canyon. In his book, the best time for a big bite is whenever you happen to get it.

Cockrell was fishing alone on the afternoon of Feb. 9 at Lake Alan Henry when he made a casual cast that resulted in a whale of a largemouth bass. The fish weighed 14.36 pounds.

It’s the fifth largest bass ever reported from the remote West Texas lake near Justiceburg and the biggest one caught there since March 2006. The lake record at Henry stands at 15 pounds.

There’s a pretty good story behind the catch, a personal best for the 29-year-old electrician.

Cockrell was pre-fishing for a bass tournament at the time. He said it was getting late and he decided to check one more spot before calling it quits for the day.

The angler described the location as a place where a flat, creek channel swing and underwater road bed collide in about 10 feet of water.

“It’s a good spot,” he said. “I caught two smaller fish there before the big one hit.”

Cockrell said he fooled the fat fish on a 25-yearold Excalibur Fat Free Shad suspending model crankbait that is no longer in production. He was throwing the shad pattern lure on 12-pound line and a medium-action crankbait rod made by I-Rod.

“It was like fighting a big striper or catfish on a little rod,” he said. “She wrapped me up in a tree and then swam out of it. After that, I worked her out to open water, thumbed the reel spool and let her go until I was able to lip her. I don’t believe in nets — I don’t own one. I was lucky. The whole deal lasted maybe 4-5 minutes.”

Cockrell did a good deed after he caught the whopper bass. He immediately took it to Ziskas On the Brazos Marina, weighed it on certified scales and placed it in a minnow vat. Then he made a phone call to the Toyota ShareLunker 24-hour hotline. Kyle Brookshear heads up the popular big bass program that started its 34th season Jan. 1.

Alan Henry is located nearly 400 miles from the ShareLunker program headquarters at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. Local Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fisheries crews picked up the fish and transferred it to Sweetwater, where it was handed off to Brookshear in a truck stop parking lot during the wee hours of the night.

The tag team effort saved about three hours in transport time, according to Caleb Huber, the TPWD fisheries biologist who oversees the lake.

“The main idea was to save time and keep that fish as healthy as possible,” Huber said.

TFFC hatchery manager Tony Owens said Cockrell’s bass appears to be in good shape. Genetics testing is being performed to determine if the bass has pure Florida genes or is a hybrid cross. The fish will remain in isolation until it is paired with a male bass for spawning later this spring.

The big Alan Henry bass is the first official Legacy Class entry of the 2020 ShareLunker season. The Legacy category is reserved for fish 13 pounds or heavier that are caught during the program’s official spawning phase, which runs Jan. 1-March 31.

LITTLE LAKE = BIG BASS

Alan Henry is a little lake with a rich history of producing giant bass. The 2,900-acre impoundment near Lubbock is the second leading producer of Legacy class lunkers (28) behind Lake Fork.

Cockrell’s fish isn’t the first wintertime ShareLunker reported from the lake, but it is somewhat of a seasonal anomaly.

Most of Alan Henry’s past ShareLunkers were caught in April or late March. That’s the time period when the water temperatures at the Panhandle reservoir warm sufficiently to beckon female bass to spawning beds. Most spawning activity occurs once water temperatures stabilize around 60-65 degrees. Large fish are generally more vulnerable during the spring than at any other time of the year.

It snowed in West Texas in early February. The water temperature at Alan Henry was a chilly 50 degrees the day Cockrell went fishing.

“These fish are a long way from moving up to spawn,” he said. “It should be a really good spring, though.”

Not surprisingly, word of Cockrell’s big fish spread quickly via social media and Internet fishing forums. A Texas Fishing Forum post about the fish generated more than 2,100 views during the first 24 hours after TPWD released the news on its Facebook page.

Fishermen are eternal optimists who like to dream big. My guess is many anglers will flock to the little lake in coming weeks hoping to get a big bite of their own.

Cockrell, who claims he fishes at Alan Henry 10-15 times a year, believes most visitors will go home disappointed.

“Alan Henry can be pretty hard lake to fish,” he said. “It’s a deep, canyon lake with really steep banks. There isn’t a lot of shallow, flat water. You’re sitting in 30-60 feet of water most of the time. I’ve seen fish the size of my 14 pounder on beds before, but they are really smart. They know what is going on, and they are hard to catch.”

LAKE WITH A HISTORY

Alan Henry started kicking out heavyweight bass in 2000 but didn’t hit full stride until a few years later. In 2005, it became the first lake to produce more 13 pounders than Lake Fork in a single ShareLunker season. The same thing happened in 2006.

Two more ShareLunkers were reported in 2007. At that point, the lake went off the big fish grid until 2016 and 2017.

Huber says Cockrell’s recent catch, along with a 12 pounder reported in January and several others heavier than 10 pounds since 2018, are encouraging because they show the lake still has the potential to grow large fish.

The biologist thinks a lingering drought that began a decade ago is partly to credit for the recent pulse in big fish. He said the lake level gradually fell to 17 below normal by 2014.

Abundant brush and other terrestrial vegetation growth that popped up on the dry lake bed was flooded when the lake refilled in 2015. That injected the water with rich nutrients and created valuable cover for little fish to hide from big fish. Scientists call it the “new lake effect.”

“The big fish were there all along, but the new lake effect gave them a shot in the arm,” Huber said. “That’s typically what we see with some of our West Texas lakes. I don’t know if we’ll see another 14 pounder this year, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more ShareLunkers come out of Alan Henry or some of our other West Texas lakes. Lake O.H. Ivie is definitely one to watch.”

SAM RAYBURN, PINES FATTIES

Alan Henry isn’t the only lake where the big ones have been biting lately.

On Jan. 30, FLW pro Hunter Freeman of Monroe, La., was pleasure fishing on Sam Rayburn Reservoir when he reeled in what may be the heaviest bass reported from the East Texas lake in several months.

The fish weighed 12.56 pounds on certified scales. Freeman said the big bass slammed a chartreuse/blue Strike King 10XD crankbait he was casting to a hard bottom shelf in the mouth of an underwater drain in about 23-27 feet of water. It is a new personal best for the 23-year-old angler.

Interestingly, Freeman said it is not the first big fish he has found on the sweet spot. He caught a 10.53 pounder there the day before and caught three others in the 7- to 8-pound classes during an FLW tournament held on the lake a week earlier.

“It’s my third double-digit fish off that exact spot in the last three years,” Freeman said. “I’m not sure what’s down there, but it’s something they like.”

Lake O’ the Pines near Longview has been equally hot for big fish as of late. Local bass pro Jim Tutt of Longview says he knows of at least four fish heavier than 10 pounds, including two heavier than 11 pounds, that have been caught from the 19,700-acre lake over the last three weeks.

“There’s got to be some bigger ones out there,” Tutt said. Pines is one of the best lakes in the state right now, no doubt about it.”