Angler lands 9.09-pound bass in tourney

By Eric Pickhartz

For Lone Star outdoor newS

Megan Wade is no stranger to tournament fishing, and certainly no stranger to Lake Fork. The 33-year-old lives in Garland and frequents the property she and her husband own at the lake’s well-known Mustang Resort. She has fished in tournaments for more than a decade, mostly with her father whom she credits as the one who got her into fishing and hunting.

But her participation alongside her dad in the Skeeter Owners Big Bass Tournament, held June 10, is the event that will stick out in her mind the most for years to come, as it led to a first-place finish and the biggest largemouth of her life.

Wade, who’s a member of the North Texas Women’s Fishing Pro Staff and a past winner of the Ladies Division in the same Skeeter Owners event, said she started the tournament without a bite all morning. Her lack of a definitive game plan and warm-but-windy conditions led her and her dad to opt for a favorite Lake Fork strategy: fishing docks.

“We kind of tried everything that morning and said, ‘What the heck, let’s go run north and test it out,’” Wade said. She opted for a Texas rig with a 6th Sense Watermelon Gill Hogwalla dipped in chartreuse Dip-N-Glo. The rest of her setup included a 20-pound braid and a

14-pound fluorocarbon leader.

“I threw into a brush pile in about 3 feet of water next to a dock and bam,” Wade said.

It didn’t take long for the largemouth to reveal itself, adding to the excitement of the moment.

“My line got heavy and I set the hook, and two seconds later this fish comes out of the water head-shaking,” Wade said. “I started yelling and jumping up and down so loud that the owner of the dock, Jim, came running down. I was yelling at my dad that it was the biggest fish of my life. I was scared that with the spinning reel, I might not be able to get it in or it would shake off, but that rod did the work and got her to the boat. It felt like it took 20 minutes but I’m sure it was only a couple.”

The fish officially weighed 9.09 pounds, beating Wade’s previous personal-best of 7.52 pounds (which she caught on the same lake). The catch won Wade $775 for the hourly biggest bass, plus the trophy, plaque and around $1,500 in prizes given to the first-place finisher in the Ladies Division.

Those are all well and good, but Wade said she appreciates the experience, prizes or not.

“The memory of catching this fish with my dad in the tournament and the adrenaline I had is priceless,” she said.