NACOGDOCHES COUNTY, Texas — It was a homecoming of sorts at an East Texas lake.
For this week's Hooked On East Texas, we traveled to Lake Nacogdoches, where a ShareLunker was returned to the lake where it was originally caught.
CBS19 watched as angler Jack York reached into the holding tank and tried to grab the biggest fish he's ever caught. As he tried to lip the fish, he told ShareLunker coordinator Natalie Goldstrohm the fish was strong.
York pulled the 13-pound bass out of the tank and held it up to the camera. It was wide-eyed and ready to return to the waters it calls home. It was a special day for York. He caught this Legacy class ShareLunker back in January.
“You always want to catch a fish like that and get to submit it to the ShareLunker program," York said.
For the last three months, York's ShareLunker has called the "Lunker Bunker" at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center home. York donated the ShareLunker to a program that is like none other in the country. The unique program selectively pairs big bass full of eggs with pure Florida strain bass. Biologists hope to produce more big bass like York’s Sharelunker. After a bass spawns, Texas Parks & Wildlife gives the fish back to the angler so they can return it where it was caught.
That’s what Jack York did under a cloudy sky with light rain falling during the last week of April. And this isn’t the first Legacy ShareLunker to come out of Lake Nacogdoches.
Kellie Renfro pulled a 13-plus-pound bass from here last year. Texas Parks and Wildlife district biologist Todd Driscoll says Lake Nacogdoches is set up to produce big bass.
“Over the past decade we’ve managed the lake with a 16-inch maximum link limit", explained Driscoll, "meaning that any largemouth bass 16 inches or bigger must be immediately released. We’re essentially managing it to be a high-quality trophy bass lake." York added, “I guide out here, always have a great time when I come out here. It’s just a special place, a lot of bass in it, a bunch of big ones, obviously. It’s a really cool spot”.
Returning a big bass like this is a positive sign the ShareLunker program is working. But just looking at a lunker doesn’t tell biologists the program is successful.
TPWD scientists also do genetic analysis on scales submitted by anglers. That hereditary database revealed several genetic links among ShareLunkers submitted this year. Including York’s fish which is the parent of a ShareLunker caught in 2021.
“Jack York’s ShareLunker bass had never been submitted so we’re thinking it was a natural spawn out here in the reservoir a few years back”, said Goldstrohm.
York says releasing the fish back into Lake Nacogdoches brings his journey with the fish full circle.
“So it was just super cool getting to see that fish again…kind of relive some of those memories, obviously everyone from Texas Parks & Wildlife did an incredible job,” York said.
Texas Parks & Wildlife calls ShareLunker season number 37 a success.
Here at Lake Nacogdoches that means high expectations for more Legacy class ShareLunkers to come out of this waterbody.
“We expect more 13-pound ShareLunkers to come from Lake Nacogdoches, given the harvest regulations, the Florida bass stockings and now the Lone Star Bass stockings", adds Driscoll.
Eighteen legacy class ShareLinkers were caught this year. Almost half a dozen of those weighed more than 14 pounds, including the 7th largest legacy class ShareLunker ever caught.