Blankenship reels in hammer bass using a weightless Zoom Brush Hog
Don’t think for a second that you need a fully-decked-out bass boat to catch a double-digit Toledo Bend monster.
Pleasant Hill’s Dennis Blankenship proved that Monday morning when he launched his Water Moccasin pirogue — sporting a 45-pound-thrust Motorguide trolling motor — at the Solan’s Camp Road landing north of the San Miguel area.
He returned later with the biggest fish of his life – a 12.55 pound lunker.
The 62-year-old angler had arrived “a little late,” launching his craft at about 10 a.m.
He headed to a favorite tree — one that had resulted in two bass weighing more than 5 pounds each on recent trips.
Blankenship was casting a weightless watermelon-red Zoom Brush Hog on 15-pound Trilene mono spooled to a Shimano Curado on a Johnny Morris Bass Pro Shop rod.
“I had made about four to five casts working a brushline while heading to that tree,” he said. “When I made it to the tree, I threw right up under it.”
Blankenship saw a swirl in the water as soon as the Brush Hog landed.
“I let it alone while it took some line, and then I laid into her,” he said.
The bass made a turn away from the tress and vaulted up, but the angler immediately placed his rod in the water to keep the bass from jumping again.
“After I did that, I turned and was able to work her right to the boat and into my net,” he said. “It happened very quickly.”
Blankenship saw the fish’s size, and immediately readied a marine cooler he adapted as an aerated livewell aboard his pirogue.
“I didn’t know what she weighed, but I knew she was big,” he said. “I have taken several bass bumping near 8 pounds, so I did know she was over 10.”
The angler returned to the landing, picked up the pirogue and headed directly to Toledo Town and Tackle, a certified weigh station for the Toledo Bend Lunker Bass Program.
On T-Town’s official scales, Blankenship’s bass weighed 12.55 pounds and measured 24 ¾ inches long, with a 21 ⅝-inch girth.
The bass was tagged and then released, and Blankenship will receive a courtesy replica from the Toledo Bend Lake Association in May.
It was lunker No. 109 for the 2015-16 season of the Toledo Bend Lunker Bass Program.
