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Darrly Hanson II of Round Rock reeled in 13.40-pound ShareLunker 662 Sunday, March 10, and with his catch, Inks Lake became the 78th public water body to produce a Legacy Lunker. Contributed/TPWD
Inks Lake and O.H. Ivie registered Legacy Class Share-Lunkers on back-to-back days to start the second week of March.
Inks Lake in Central Texas etched its name in the Toyota ShareLunker record books with its first Legacy Class largemouth bass, while O.H. Ivie delivered its sixth Legacy Lunker this season.
Darrly Hanson II of Round Rock reeled in 13.40-pound ShareLunker 662 Sunday, March 10, and with his catch, Inks Lake became the 78th public water body to produce a Legacy Lunker.
Larry Walker of Irving landed 13.83-pound ShareLunker 663 Monday evening, March 11, at O.H. Ivie – the 13th entry overall of the 2024 Toyota ShareLunker collection season.
“In the Lone Star State, there are numerous water bodies capable of reaching an impressive 13 pounds or heavier,” said Natalie Goldstrohm, Toyota Share-Lunker program coordinator.
“There are reservoirs that have historically produced bigger bass, like Lake Fork and O.H. Ivie, and those that are lesser known that have remark- able trophy bass fisheries. We are awaiting what the remainder of the season holds.”
Hanson’s ShareLunker 662 was the third from a new water body this year, with Inks Lake joining J.B. Thomas and Fort Phantom with its first Legacy Class fish.
Seven different reservoirs have provided entries to the fold this collection season.
Hanson’s ShareLunker 662 from Inks Lake was a monumental catch in more ways than one because it’s the new Inks Lake record for largemouth bass.
Prior to March 11, only nine total fish have been entered into the year-round ShareLunker program.
The biggest in the group was a Strike King Elite Class entry on March 15, 2023, from Carsen Clark of Killeen that weighed 11.35 pounds.
The previous Inks Lake largemouth bass record weighed 12.50 pounds and was set on Feb. 18, 2017, by Christopher Snyder.
Hanson headed to Inks Lake early in the morning Sunday to compete in the Tonkawa Bassmasters Club tournament. He had not fished Inks Lake in a couple of years but had a plan for where to fish based on past trips to the lake. “I’ve had decent luck at Inks Lake in the past, and the lake has some good structure,” said Hanson.
“There is a particular area that has all sorts of docks and cement dock structure all around, which provides great cover, so I decided to target fish there. I put a couple of fish in the live well using an A-rig first thing in the morning to try and capitalize on bites.
Then there was an area that I could see off to the left that was on a point with structure.
I threw an A-rig running it parallel against it and she slammed it.”
The battle for ShareLunker 662 ensued.
“I set the hook, and she pulled back and ran out to open water,” added Hanson.
“She came up out of the water and I knew this was a big fish. She made five or six runs with two of them going underneath the boat.
She got to the point where I could get her closer to the boat and scooped her into the net.
I lifted her in the boat and said that must be a double-digit.”
Hanson weighed the fish on the tournament scale, and it checked in at 13.40 pounds.
He ended up catching more fish totaling a 39-pound bag enroute to a tournament championship.
ShareLunker 662 was also a personal best, eclipsing his previous best of 11.4 pounds at Choke Canyon.
Hanson made the call to TPWD to begin the entry process into the Toyota Share-Lunker program.
“I headed over to the Inks Lake State Park office and offi cially weighed her there for the Angler Recognition Program,” said Hanson. “Natalie walked me through the process, the state park staff was very helpful, and all in all the Share-Lunker program is an excellent one.”
At O.H. Ivie, Walker was fishing with his guide and good friend Kyle Hall on Monday.
He has fished the lake for many years, and Monday’s mission was to catch a ShareLunker.
“We started out early in the morning, caught a few small fish, saw some big ones and then finally saw a great big one on the nest,” said Walker.
“I got lucky, and it bit. It came out of the water, and it looked like Moby Dick. When I got it in the boat, it weighed 13.83 pounds.