Revamped bass program is a big success
Most of the millionplus Texas anglers who primarily target largemouth bass, the nation’s most popular sport fish, will brag that their state is home to the most abundant, diverse and highquality bass fisheries in the country. Early results from the 2018 ShareLunker program give those anglers and the Texas fisheries managers who oversee those fisheries ammunition to support that claim.
Almost four months into the debut year of a revamped and significantly expanded ShareLunker program, a cooperative research/hatchery production project between Texas anglers and state fisheries managers aimed at improving the quality of the state’s largemouth bass fishery, anglers have reported approximately 300 fish weighing more than 8 pounds, with more than 60 of them weighing 10 pounds or more and eight weighing more than 13 pounds.
“So far, we’ve had around 300 fish, total, submitted for entry into the program,” said Kyle Brookshear, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fisheries biologist and coordinator of the ShareLunker program. “As of April 15, 211 of those fish had been officially certified, with those fish coming from a total of 64 different bodies of water.
“For a completely redesigned program that we just rolled out Jan. 1, I’m really pleased with how anglers have responded. “As more anglers learn about the changes in the program, I think we’ll see even more participation.”
Expanding angler participation through the use of digital technology and using the fish and information those anglers provide to improve the quality of the state’s bass fisheries were behind the changes that took effect this year.
Texas’ ShareLunker program — officially, Toyota ShareLunker after the project’s corporate sponsor — was created 31 years ago as a way to try incorporating Floridastrain largemouths, a subspecies with the genetic predisposition to grow to extra-large sizes, into TPWD’s fish hatchery and research programs. Anglers who caught a largemouth weighting 13 pounds or more between Oct. 1 and April 30 were solicited to lend the live fish to TPWD. The agency would house the fish at its Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center near Athens, where staff would attempt to get the female fish (huge bass are invariably females) to spawn. Most of the fry and fingerlings produced by the fish would be stocked back into the lake from which the big bass was taken, with some retained for use in research.
Over ShareLunker’s first 30 years, anglers donated more than 550 13-pound or heavier bass to the program.
After a more than 18month review of the program, TPWD late this past year announced it was revamping the program.
Three-month window
The redesigned ShareLunker now is a yearround program with four classes of entries.
It continues soliciting angler-donated 13-pound-or-heavier largemouths for use in hatchery production, but it accepts only fish landed between Jan. 1 and March 31 for that use. Big female bass caught during that threemonth window have proved the most successful at spawning in the hatcheries, Brookshear said. Such fish are entered in the program’s “Lunker Legacy” category.
Those big fish remain the “bread and butter” of the ShareLunker program, Brookshear said. Their fingerlings will continue being stocked into the lakes from which their mother came. But some will be held at the hatcheries, grown to adults and used as brood fish for TPWD’s largemouth bass production. Over coming years, TPWD will phase in use of ShareLunker progeny as brood stock until all largemouth bass stocked in Texas public waters are descendants of 13-pound or heavier bass.
“We’ve been able to stock a couple of million (ShareLunker) fry over the first 30 years of the program,” Brookshear said. “Once we convert all brood stock to adults produced by ShareLunkers, we’ll be stocking 4-6 million annually all across the state.”
This year, the 2018 ShareLunker program saw six 13-pluses accepted into the “Lunker Legacy” category — three from Lake Fork, and one each from lakes Kurth, Rayburn and Twin Buttes. Four of those fish have successfully spawned, Brookshear said. Five were released back into the lakes from which they were taken. One fish — from Lake Kurth — remains at the hatchery. The Kurth fish was the only one of the six to prove a pure-strain Florida bass.
The remaining 205 entries so far accepted into the 2018 ShareLunker program were entered in the program’s new categories: “Lunker,” (bass measuring at least 24 inches or weighing 8-9.99 pounds) “Lunker Elite” (10-12.99 pounds) and “Lunker Legend” (13 pounds or more and not caught between Jan. 1March 31).
Anglers who wish to participate in those categories do not donate their live fish to the program. Instead, they enter the fish by creating an account on the ShareLunker’s digital platform and completing an online entry. Part of that includes a requirement the angler submit two photos of the fish — one against a rigid measuring board and the other showing the fish weighed on a digital scale.
Complete rules for the program, as well as links to download the ShareLunker app and instructions on how to help fisheries managers increase their genetic database of large largemouths by removing and sending a few scales from ShareLunker-qualifying fish, are available on the program’s website at texassharelunker.com.
Anglers whose entries are accepted are rewarded with a “catch kit” that includes a program participant decal recognizing the category of the angler’s catch and a selection of fishing-related gear. As added incentive, participants also are entered in an end-of-year drawing for a fishingrelated prize package valued at $5,000.
As of April 15, Texas anglers had entered 148 bass in the “Lunker” category, 55 “Elite” bass and two 13-pluses in the “Legend” category, Brookshear said.
Fifty or so bass are awaiting certification for ShareLunker entry, he said.
Currently, the program is seeing about a fish a day submitted for entry in the program, Brookshear said. But back in March, the annual peak of Texas’ big-bass season, when egg-laden females move into the shallows for their annual spawn and are especially vulnerable to anglers, those numbers were much higher.
“In March, we were getting as many as 30 entries a week,” he said.
The diversity of Texas waters producing those ShareLunker entries has been “pretty phenomenal,” Brookshear said.
“So far, we’ve had approved entries come from 64 different bodies of water,” Brookshear said “We’ve had fish entered from all across the state — lakes in West Texas, North Texas, South Texas, and, of course, East Texas. But we’ve had them come from rivers such as the Brazos and Colorado, park ponds, state park lakes — just about any kind of water body you can think of.
“It really shows the diversity and quality of bass fishing opportunities in Texas; you’re likely to catch a trophy-size bass in just about any piece of water in the state,” he said.
Several of the fish so far entered in the 2018 ShareLunker program were the heaviest ever documented from those waters. They include a 10.60-pounder landed from Sheldon Lake State Park, a 13-even from Tradinghouse Creek and the 13.34-poounder from Lake Kurth.
Lake Fork, widely considered the state’s premier trophy-bass fishery, has accounted for more ShareLunker entries so far this year than any other water body. Fork fishers have entered 31 8-pound and heavier fish through April 15.
Lake Conroe has been second in 2018 ShareLunker entries with 18 fish. Lake Athens is third with 10 entries. Sam Rayburn Reservoir and Lake LBJ are tied for fourth with nine entries, and Lake O.H. Ivie in West Texas is fifth with eight ShareLunker entries.
Getting word out
Brookshear said he expects — hopes for — “500 to 600, and maybe as many as 700” entries this year. A lot of that depends on word about the changes in the ShareLunker program getting out to the state’s millionplus bass anglers.
“The biggest hurdle is public awareness of the program and understanding the entry process — how to submit an entry and especially the photos required,” he said.
TPWD is working to refine the ShareLunker app, online application, the program’s website and begin including information garnered from the data anglers provide.
“We’re developing improvements to the app and website to make them more user-friendly and, eventually, include practical information anglers can access — things such as real-time data on the top-producing lakes in the state,” Brookshear said.
But sharing those insights depends on Texas anglers sharing the information about the big bass they land with the state’s fisheries managers.
“It’s a real unique opportunity for anglers to share information that can play a vital role in developing fisheries management plans and for fisheries managers to share information that benefits anglers,” he said. “The goal is more and bigger bass and better fishing for Texans.”
The early results from the revamped ShareLunker program offer encouraging insights that could result in what’s already a world-class bass fishery getting even better.