It's No Secret That Everything Is Big in The Lone Star State

And that includes their fish. Take a gander at this huge 13.02-lb. bass that CJ Oates (right) caught this past Thursday night in Lake Austin. Said the lucky angler, "I was reeling past a wooden dock when I felt the slightest tick." He reared back and immediately suspected he had hooked an enormous largemouth.

"For a moment, I thought I might be hung up," he said, "but then I felt her head shake. At this point, things started getting really serious. During all of this madness, my partner and I didn't have time to turn on our headlamps, so we didn't have much of a gauge of how big she was.

"When I got her to the boat, she started jumping and splashing, and it was hard for my buddy to net her in the darkness," explained Oates. "It wasn't until he picked her up and set her in the boat that we were able to turn on our headlamps and finally see how big she was. We couldn't believe what we had done," he continued.

Oates later would refer to his fish as feeling "like a mini school bus," adding that "she was so massive that I could barely reel her in."

That fish turns out to be the second "Legacy Class" largemouth bass to have been donated live to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department already in 2021, marking a fast start to the department's seasonal Toyota ShareLunker Program.

Several divisions make up this program, but only "Legacy Class" fish--those weighing 13 or more pounds--are used in a selective breeding program that runs during the January-through-March spawning period. Biologists encourage spawning and raise the young for future stocking opportunities throughout the state.

Oates' caught his fish on a football jig less than a week after Travis Moore (above, left) weighed in a 13.44-lb. largemouth that he had caught on a Carolina rig during a tournament on Sam Rayburn Reservoir.

As Moore related, "This was one of the best days of my life. I've caught a few 12-pounders and a handful of 10s, but this one is special for me. As a bass fisherman, giants like this is what we fish for every time we go out on the water."

According to the ShareLunker website, "Out of the millions of bass anglers in Texas, only a select few ever have crossed the 13-pound threshold."

Thanks for the tip, Jimmy.