Texas Parks & Wildlife officials say bass guide Wyatt Frankens of Corrigan caught a record-setting fish last month at O.H. Ivie Lake, a reservoir on the Colorado and Concho Rivers about 55 miles east of San Angelo.
Frankens said he knew right away there was something unique about the 7.6-pound bass, so he contacted state biologists.
“The lab results are in,” Frankens posted on his Facebook page. “Just got off the phone with the biologist, and he let me know that it was a smallmouth-largemouth hybrid! So not only is it a lake record, it is a Texas state record as well.”
And, it turns out, Frankens set a new world record, too. The International Game Fish Association, which keeps track of such things, confirmed the catch.
The rare type of bass is called a “meanmouth bass” because the man-made species is extremely aggressive. When raised and released in grow-out ponds for biological study, they have even attacked a swimmer and a wading dog.
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