Woods & Water: A lunker bass … on trout PowerBait?

PowerBait, really!? After reading this article in Woods & Waters I believe I need to get that old jar of Orange PowerBait out my trout vest and stick it in my Bass Box. When I think about PowerBait I think back to when I was a child first learning to fish, not that it is taboo by today's standard, but it is looked at as an easy way of fishing. The majority of the time, this method doesn't allow the fish to be release easily or without damage as they normally swallow the hooks and possible damage their gils. I am not bashing PowerBait or saying not to use it.  Most people I know use it and yes I have some and used it occasionally, but mainly fly fishing, use of jigs or spinners, or even live bait are more my speed these days, but this might all be changing after the lunker that was landed during a bad day of trout fishing with a gob of PowerBait.

A lunker bass … on trout PowerBait?

July 3, 2011 by John McCoy

Experts would say Hilda Baker didn’t have the right gear to fish for bass. Maybe so, but no one can argue with her results.

Earlier this month, while staying at her family’s Pocahontas County camp, Baker went fishing for trout at Seneca State Forest and ended up landing one of the biggest largemouth bass ever caught in West Virginia.

Weighed on official scales more than 12 hours after it was caught, the lunker largemouth checked in at 9.55 pounds and measured 24 inches in length. Since dead fish tend to quickly lose body mass, it’s reasonable to believe the bass weighed close to 10 pounds when Baker caught it.

What’s most remarkable about the fish is that it came from a 4-acre public pond not known to yield many bass of any size, let alone a whopper.

Baker, who lives in West Hamlin, certainly wasn’t thinking about bass on June 7, when she and her husband loaded up their ultralight spinning rods and made the short drive from their Huntersville camp to Seneca State Forest. Hatchery crews had stocked Seneca Lake a couple of weeks before, and plenty of trout remained to be caught. To continue reading, click here...