Tuesday, November 10, 2015

San Saba River Monster Part 2

So many of you have read my blog entry regarding the adventure we had on the San Saba River
where I caught a large bass on my ultralight rod.  Well, it would seem there might be more to the story.

If you haven't read the story, click this link and read it first.


First, it didn't completely occur to me how much harder it was to fight that fish than it should have been.  For comparison, I caught a 19.5in Spotted bass on Inks lake recently that hardly fought at all compared to this fish and the Spotted was in a lake, not fighting *upstream*.  This meant that my San Saba Monster was quite a powerful fish.

Second, As I was creating the video, I went over and over the video many times tweaking it. It was at one spot where I had just pulled the fish out of the water that I realized something...

That bass had several characteristics of a Guadeloupe Bass.  It barely had any lateral line at all and had large blotchy spots along the middle AND along the dorsal fin which had the design of a Guad and was very close if not connected to the front portion of the dorsal. And the back edge of the mouth was pretty much in line with the eye, not behind it.  I was not in the habit of checking for tooth patches so I have no idea about that aspect.

Overall it really looks and seems like it might have been a Guadeloupe Bass.  If so, it would make this fish the largest Guadeloupe Bass I've ever heard of being caught.  The record length is 17.5 and 3lbs and this fish was much longer though about the same weight.

Add to all of this the fact that fish was caught in the current and fought like a horse going upstream all points to the fact that this was NOT a largemouth bass.  It might have been a Spotted bass, but I'm skeptical of that because the blotches and the dorsal fin didn't look like a spotted.

So, I feel like I might have had a record fish in my hands.  While it does make me feel good, I also realized that there are likely many others who have caught fish like this one.

Still, it does feel good to have caught something that is the equivalent to catching a 20lb Largemouth.  It is a memory I will not soon forget!

Thanks for allowing me to share it with you.

Tight lines y'all!

Mike
GeeksFishToo

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