Of the seven states visited by the Wal-Mart FLW Tour this year, Mississippi has the heaviest official state-record largemouth bass with a weight of 18.15 pounds. This is no small fish, and no small feat because Mississippi is up against some heavy hitters in the largemouth category: namely Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas and, of course, Florida.
A man named Anthony Denny pulled the record bass from a lake in Natchez State Park in 1992. Caught on New Year’s Eve day with a rogue lure, the fish set a pretty high standard as far as state records are concerned. In fact, only three states – California, Georgia and Texas – have set heavier official largemouth state records. (Florida unofficially weighs in at 20.13 pounds, but that fish was caught before official records were kept. Officially, the record is 17.27 pounds.)
Natchez State Park Lake is one of many lakes to benefit from the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ efforts to renovate bass fisheries around the state. Using Florida-strain brood from the state fish hatchery near Lyman, countless waterways – particularly south of Interstate 20 – have benefited from the department’s efforts to introduce the bigger and better bass. Unfortunately, neither the Pascagoula nor Biloxi rivers is one of them.
So FLW anglers will have their work cut out for them as far as the Visa $2 Million Challenge is concerned when they hit the water Wednesday for tour stop #2 on the Pascagoula River near Biloxi, Miss. It’s going to take a Herculean effort, not to mention a lot of luck, for somebody to land the next Mississippi state largemouth record during the tournament.
“(The record’s) just going to be hard to break,” said Ron Garavelli, director of fisheries for the State of Mississippi. “The fish are just not as big down there as in our renovated lakes.”
But Garavelli did not rule out the possibility. He said the tournament waters – including the Pascagoula, Biloxi and Tchoutacabouffa rivers and the Back Bay of Biloxi – are stocked with good-sized, quality bass.
“You can find a lot of fish over 10 pounds down there,” he said. “I don’t think people will be disappointed.”
And they shouldn’t lose hope for a state record. There is an alternative route to the Visa $2 Million Challenge grand prize if the largemouth record proves to be too hefty. The Mississippi spotted bass record stands at 8 pounds, 2 ounces (caught by S. Ross Grantham in Jones County, 1975). And, depending on conditions, who knows? All records are made to be broken.
Biloxi’s a gambling town. If anybody has a shot to break the record, it’s tough to bet against the competitors on the FLW Tour. After all, these are the best bass anglers in the world, and they will certainly be gunning for those big, million-dollar bass.
Official Mississippi state bass records:
Largemouth: 18.15 pounds
Spotted: 8 pounds, 2 ounces
(There is a smallmouth record – 7 pounds, 15 ounces – but it came from Pickwick Lake, which sits way up in the northeast corner of the state and is the only smallmouth fishery in Mississippi.)