AUSTIN – If any superstitious anglers are wondering whether the Leap Day weekend is lucky or unlucky for catching the fish of a lifetime, two Texas bass anglers just made the answer very clear.
Angler Joe Castle caught the first Legacy Class Toyota ShareLunker entry of the weekend – a whopping 15.34 pound, 27.5 inch largemouth bass – on a Senko wacky rig in three feet of water at Lake Nacogdoches while fishing on his Leap Year birthday Feb. 29. ShareLunker 583 is the second Toyota ShareLunker Legacy Class entry of the year and the new pending water body record for the lake.
“My initial reaction was that it was a double-digit bass, but when I put it on the scale and realized just how big it is I about fell over,” Castle said. “After I put her in my live well and called someone to tell them what just happened, he thought I was lying. I sent him a picture of the scale and he said, ‘You need to call the ShareLunker program.”
Angler Blake Cockrell caught the second Legacy class fish of the weekend – a 13.28 pound, 26.5 inch largemouth bass – on a jig in 15 feet of water while fishing in a Lubbock BankLiners tournament at Lake Alan Henry March 1. If his name sounds familiar, it’s because ShareLunker 584 is now his second entry of the year from the same West Texas lake.
“I had only been fishing for five minutes on a single hook lure, and when she came up and turned, I knew it was a big fish,” Cockrell said. “I looked at the kid in the back of the boat with me and said ‘This is another ShareLunker…this really just happened again.’ After the first one, people had told me ‘you’re
