Turner uses crawfish-colored jerkbait to land 12-pound hammer
Winning the Powerball has nothing to do with skill or experience: You choose numbers randomly or use pre-selected numbers like the birthdays of your kids, buy a lottery ticket and then just sit back and watch the drawing on television.
If your numbers happen to come up, you just got lucky — and you suddenly become a millionaire.
Ruston’s Kay Turner may feel a bit like that fortunate lottery winner.
She simply tossed a Rogue jerkbait into Lake Claiborne last Monday, March 30, and the lure happened to pass in front of the nose of a monster bass. The fish hit the lure and bingo – it was like she nailed the Powerball.
In fact, Turner set the hook on one of the largest bass taken from Lake Claiborne in recent years, with the big egg-laden female measuring 26 inches in length and tipping the scales at 12 pounds.
“My husband, Jim, and I usually hook up our camper and join his brother and wife and go to spend a few days on either Lake Claiborne or Lake D’Arbonne during spring break,” Turner said. “We love these beautiful state parks and this year, we decided on Claiborne.
“My husband had to work that day and didn’t get back to the camper until around 5 that afternoon. He launched the boat and we headed out to fish. I certainly don’t consider myself a good fisherman. In fact, I have only caught a couple of bass ever in my life.”
Jim handed his wife an Ambassadeur 5000 reel mounted on a 6-foot Ugly Stick rod with a crawfish-colored Rogue tied on.
“My husband told me to just cast it out and reel it straight in, or maybe give it a twitch on the way back to the boat, so I did,” she said.
As she was reeling the jerkbait back to the boat, the big fish hit. Then the fun began, according to Turner.
“I knew it was something mighty big and when it rolled on top and my husband saw what a big fish it was, he got really excited and I was just hanging on for dear life,” she said.
She got the fish to the boat but as it swam underneath, threatening to break the line, Turner’s husband came to the rescue and helped her get the big sow aboard.
“I love to spend time with my husband out on the water and I’m usually looking at all the pretty camps on the lake, dreaming about maybe owning one,” she said. “Never did I ever think I’d catch a fish like that.
“Had it not been for my husband being with me, I would have no big fish story to tell.”
