Angler Trotlines Missouri State Record
By CAM Staff
It may not look like all that much, but anyone who has ever fished for white bass will realize this new Missouri state record is a chunk.
James Wright, of Cape Fair, Mo., was fishing on Table Rock Lake in the Ozarks of southwestern Missouri on April 6 when he caught the 3-pound, 4-ounce, 18 ¾-inch fish on a trotline. Wright was targeting catfish and was using shad for bait, so he was surprised when he pulled the big white bass out of the water.
White bass are widely distributed across the country thanks to introductions away from their native Midwest rivers and reservoirs. They are close relatives of striped bass and look a lot like a shortened version of their larger cousins. They are a very popular target for anglers when they run upstream into rivers and streams in high densities each spring to spawn.
Wright’s fish, caught on a trotline, qualified for Missouri’s “alternative method” record, a category that includes throwlines, trotlines, limb lines, bank lines, jug lines, spearfishing, snagging, snaring, gigging, grabbing, archery and atlatl. The pole and line state record also came from Table Rock Lake. It is a 5-pound, 6-ounce fish that was caught in 2002. The IGFA world record is shared by two 6-pound, 13-ounce fish—one caught from Lake Orange, Va. in 1989, the other from Louisiana’s Amite River in 2010.
So, while it might not be an earth-shattering record, it’s still a mighty fine fish. We’d still like to see someone catch a fish by atlatl. If you don’t know that it is, Google it.
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