Brack’s 15-pound largemouth still has him shaking his head in disbelief
Terry Brack was just a regular fisherman doing what regular fishermen do. He went to a spot where he thought he could catch some fish, threw a lure he knew would catch fish, and fished hard for three hours. That was also without a bite, except for two small goo. The fish obviously weren’t biting and he had just about made up his mind to go home.
Then he did something regular fishermen don’t do.
Standing on the shore of the turbine channel below the humongous Toledo Bend Reservoir dam, Brack hooked into a totally unexpected fish of a lifetime — a 15 pound largemouth bass that, if certified, will literally blow the old Sabine River bass record slap out of the water. The fish was 26.5 inches long.
“I had literally just decided it was time to go home when the big fish hit,” Brack said. “I was fishing for hybrids. Usually when they have the turbines running wide open, you can catch all you want. But they weren’t biting. But when I stuck this big fish, I thought it was just a big goo. It didn’t come up and it just felt like a big old brick as I reeled it in. It was a long way out and in fairly deep water and when it got to shore, it just went belly up. When I saw what it was, I was shocked. I’m still amazed by it.”
What to do?
Brack admired the fish a moment and then realized he didn’t know what to do. He thought about releasing it, but it was dead. It wouldn’t even flop its tail. And he wanted to weigh it, but had a long trek up the hill and a longer drive to a store to weigh it on certified scales. So he just took it home and weighed it and will have the fish mounted. Brack lives just outside Leesville.
“I know a lot of people think you should throw those back, but I didn’t have that choice,” he said. “Some people on social media were griping about it, but they don’t understand. I’m not a tournament fishing and don’t have any fancy gear. There’s nothing fancy about me at all.
“So I’m just going to enjoy the fact that I caught a 15-pound bass and will have it mounted to preserve it,” he said.
The ironic thing about the Feb. 9 trip is that he almost didn’t go. It was raining and he was about to cancel when his wife encouraged him to go and have fun. So he did. When he arrived, he was the only fisherman there, which is very unusual when the dam is generating power and water is rushing down the Sabine below the dam.
“I was throwing my bait way out into about 25 feet of water and letting the current carry it around into an eddy and a small pool of still water,” he said. “When the bait got to the pool, I would begin my retrieve. The hybrids usual stack up in there and I’ve caught a few bass up to five pounds doing that, but never anything near this big.”
Erratic shiner
Brack was fishing with an Erratic Shiner by LiveTarget. The lure is a clear spoon with a life-like inner core that looks like a baitfish.
Brack grew up in Evans, right on the river, and he fishes it all the time below the spillway and up and down the river, usually out of a 15-foot aluminum boat with a 20-horse motor. He also likes to bass fish with a buzzy bait and a Pop-R when the river is right.
“I still shake my head when I think about it,” he said. “When I saw that big old bass float up, I couldn’t believe it. I still had to work it around to a sandbar and get it on the bank. I wish I could have done something different, but I wasn’t going to just chunk the dead fish back in the water and watch it float off. As I said, I’m just proud of my catch and can’t wait to go catch some more.”
The official Sabine River record is 6.8 pounds and Brack laughed when he found that out. He caught an 8.5 pounder 15 years ago. Although his new fish wasn’t weighed on a certified scale, it was an accurate scale and he hopes it can be certified as a Sabine record.
