Hack catches monster on watermelon seed Zoom Brush Hog Thursday morning
Before last Thursday, Donald Hack’s biggest bass at Toledo Bend was 6 pounds.
But that morning around 8:30, the 61-year-old St. Amant angler beat his personal best by a whopping 4 ½ pounds and landed a 10.55-pound lunker only a few miles from his Lanana Creek camp.
“I recall that the weather wasn’t real cold that morning, just enough for a jacket,” Hack said. “I woke up at 6 a.m. and did what I always do: have a cup of coffee and some breakfast.”
He then sauntered off to his boat, launched from his camp and started fishing shallows that yielded to deeper water and submerged hydrilla.
“I started by catching three bass on a 3/8-ounce Booyah white spinnerbait with a white trailer,” Hack said. “After catching the last of the three, I decided to come back around and fish the area slowly.
“I then tied on a Zoom watermelon seed Brush Hog to fish the area again.”
The rest of Hack’s tackle set-up included Trilene mono spooled on a Shimano reel with an All Star rod.
“At about 8:30, I cast with the Brush Hog and my line started moving a little bit just as it did when I caught the other three bass,” Hack said. “When I set the hook however, I could really feel this fish.
“The line first started moving to the right, and then the fish turned quickly to the left. It almost wrapped around my trolling motor but I was able to get the fish to the front of it.Then my line went to the right side and under the boat right before I could get to the net.”
The net did the trick – but just barely.
“I was able to put the bass in it, but only about half the length of the fish,” he said. “I weighed the bass on a handheld digital scale and the reading was 10.07 pounds. I knew I had to put it in the livewell so I could get it to Toledo Town and Tackle in a hurry to weigh it and enter the bass in the Toledo Bend Lunker Bass Program.”
Hack originally headed back to his camp to look for a cooler to fill with water to transport the bass in, but decided to trailer his boat and use the livewell aerator for the trip.
At Toledo Town and Tackle, the certified scale read 10.55 pounds and Hack admitted feeling like he had won the lottery.
“I did not expect to catch a fish that big when I went out that morning,” he said.
Hack completed the necessary paperwork, and is now eligible to receive a free replica of his lunker bass from the Toledo Bend Lake Association’s Lunker Bass Program.
The big bass was tagged and released back into Toledo Bend waters.
For more information regarding the Toledo Bend Lunker Bass Program, click here.
