BIggest Bass you ever caught

My story kinda sucks in a way.

Pre-fishing for a tournament on a saturday at 1215. Pitching buck brush looking for a big bite. Not getting a sniff. I put the troll motor on high to troll across a timber flat to get to another buttonwood island. I'm bored. My partner is laying down in the boat hung over.

I look down and see a rattletrap tied on anther rod. I cast it just to pass the time whilst I troll.

8lbs 6oz. Next cast, 4lbs 12oz. We put our shite up and go drinking.

Front comes through overnight. I return to that spot 3 different times throughout the day. Not one single bite on a trap or on anything else in that area.

White perch fishing on a party barge... Dec. 28th 2005.

We posted up the perch poles, and I was making casts around standing timber in 18 ft. of water with a fluke just to pass the time.

She swam up from the depths and boiled on it, in 18 ft of water of all crazy arse things.

Only bass I caught that day... we did ok on the sac-a-lait. But you can bet I didn't put that fluke down the rest of the afternoon.

All we had was a shitty old rapala scale that had a rusted out spring on it. It read 8.5 lbs., but because it was rusted I later hung a 5 lbs. dumbell. It read 3.5...

So, I think she was right around 10 lbs. She's still swimming in the Red River oxbow that shall remain nameless... I hope she is. I turned her loose...

7 lbs out of my buddy's pond.

7.4
the mount is 23 years old and busted all up. Only pics are old pics in my album

Lots of 5 and 6s

Number 2 is this 7 lber caught on 7-5-91. She was paper thin when we weighed her,

8 pounds 2 ounces. I caught it when I was 3 years old on a mickey mouse pole. I was bream fishing and that joker about ripped me in the water. Thankfully my dad was there to assist me a little bit

5 lbs. 2 oz. In Bayou Black

I have 3. These are all WV bass. ETA: WV bass record is 9.6 lb, to put things in perspective. I would love to catch a ~10 lb'r in LA!!!!!
1) I was 13, fishing out of a jon boat with my dad and had a flat silver and black rattle trap tied on. Made an amazing cast, not typical for me at that age, and thats all she wrote. I nailed a 21 3/4 inch 5 lb 14 oz on a zebco 33. We had it mounted. Dad wanted me to stop using the rattle trap so we could use it in the mount, but I didnt want to and wouldn't you know it, the next cast was a tree top, over 20 ft in the air. We found a reflective silver and black rattle trap, but could never find the exact match. From that day on I was hooked. At 15 i talked my Dad into getting me a bass boat (we had always had pontoons so I had considerable experience on the water) and started fishing bass local tournaments through high school and college.
2) I was 16, was prefishing a tourney, we finished up and decided to mess around musky fishing. Tied on a local Odie bait, a 10 inch joined medium dive crank and was pulling it along standing old trees in the middle of the finger (25 ft deep, fishing about 10 ft deep) and nailed a 22 inch 6 lb 1 oz bass, got a citation of recognition for it and released it.
3) I was 18, fishing a bass tournament, the water temp at the surface was in the lower 80's with deep water significantly cooler. We were fishing in August. Fishing in about 20 ft of water on a hidden channel inlet, and I nail a 22 1/2 inch bass. Fought it up from the deep and put it in the live well. We worked with it a ton, using please release me treatment to help it live to no avail. It died (the tourney allowed one dead fish). The bass weighed 6 something, i don't remember its weight for some reason. We won that night, $500 (30 dollar buy-in)with a total weight over 10 lbs and i kept the bass, it is remaining to be mounted.

5.5lbs smallmouth on a 5wt fly rod.

Tippet was 4lb test.

Caught at Pickwick Lake TN at the In-laws
Willow flys had the first hatch of the year and the bream were going nuts, I had probably caught over 100 in 30-45 minutes. My M-I-L just called for breakfast and I make one more cast and the fly just got sucked under. I come tight and feel a shake and all my line peeled off my reel and took me a pretty good way into the backing. Fish never jump or surfaced and I thought I had a damn drum. After about 10min I caught a glimpse of what it was and about lost it. I tired it out jumped in the water to get it. I was pumped to say the least.

Sorry, no picks This was predigital