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by CURTIS CARPENTER
TEXAS GAME AND FISH
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IT'S NOT AN ODD coincidence that truckloads of bass fishermen save their time off for the months of March and April. And, it's no accident that big bass and big bass fishermen just happen to clash on Texas lakes during these two months. Certainly, bucket-mouth bass would like to avoid the meet- ing-but bait slinging pescadores wouldn't have it any other way. They know that if they ever catch a mounting-sized largemouth, it'll happen sometime in the early months of spring. Many anglers start their "bass watch" in early February. They wait for a break in the weather. "Give us two or three days of warm weather and someone will pick up a good fish," they say. "The big ones are anxious-they'll start hitting any day now." And so, the few fishermen who make up the "Big Bass Fraternity" return to the lakes each weekend, each day off, determined to be on the water bouncing a bait along the bottom when the monster large- mouths strike out. In Texas, fishermen are subject to catch taxidermy specials in nu- merous lakes scattered all over this great land. A few lakes outstrip others in big bass catches not espe- eially because the bass are thicker, but because there are fewer trees and brush in some lakes than in others. It's just naturally much more difficult to fight a big bass into the net if the water is loaded with trees, stumps, bushes and other line- breaking obstacles. Fishermen probably take more big bass each year from Granite Shoals Lake in Central Texas than any other lake in the state. It doesn't produce the biggest bass, but the fishing fraternity find it to be consistently dependable for lun- ker catches. Fishermen claim this is true because the lake has ideal habitat for bass, and because the lake has lots of open water to play in the big fish.
Texas. Game and Fish Commission. Information and Education Branch.Texas Game and Fish, Volume 22, Number 5, May 1964,
periodical,
May 1964;
Austin, Texas.
(https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1588378/m1/8/:
accessed July 18, 2024),
University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.;
crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.