Konin Pharr managed the catch of a lifetime at 11 years-old.
A Father’s Day fishing trip turned into a core memory for the young Union Grove angler and his dad, Charles, thanks to a 27-inch black bass.
According to Charles, he was quick to cash in the “Free Fishing Trip” coupon Konin gifted him June 16, and the duo was soon bound for Lake Gladewater. Instead of pier fishing, they opted for a spot near the spillway and were grateful for it soon after.
Using a 30-inch Dock Demon with a braided line they added the night before, “He throws it three times, swaps to a lure, swaps to Buzzbait, swaps to a spinner, swaps to a Whopper Plopper,” Charles recalled. About 8 p.m. “I just hear the water blow up – I turn around, and his pole was bent over.”
The big bass thrashed in the flooded water, but both pole and line held, and Konin soon pulled it in.
“That’s the fish of a lifetime right there,” Charles said. Tragically, “The battery was out on the scales. It was 27 inches, but the weight is undetermined.”
A picture’s worth a thousand words, but not for official record-keeping: “In my personal opinion, it’d be a state record for his age and the tackle he caught it on.”
A couple of weeks after Pharr’s catch, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department personnel restocked the lake for the first time in four years, bringing in a load of ‘Lone Star Bass’ through the ongoing stocking plan for Lake Gladewater.
According to District Fisheries Biologist Timothy Bister, these are the prime largemouth bass produced now in the TPW system.
“They are second-generation offspring of Sharelunker Largemouth Bass,” he noted, with females growing to more than 13 pounds. “Those are the genetics that we have in our hatchery system. They have the greatest potential to grow to larger-sized.
On July 1, “We stocked just over 47,000 fingerlings which are about an inch-and-a-half-long. At Gladewater, I like to stock it once every four years. That’s enough to maintain those superior genetics in the population.”