This Texas lake produced a record number of big bass in 2023.
by Kirk McDonnell photography by Chase Fountain
IT’S NO SECRET that O.H. Ivie Lake has produced an unprecedented run of largemouth bass fishing success over the last three years. It’s garnered the attention of anglers far and wide; people are flocking to Texas from across the nation and the world, hoping to land the catch of a lifetime.
During the past three collections seasons of the Toyota ShareLunker program managed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Inland Fisheries Division, O.H. Ivie has amassed 39 combined Legacy Lunkers (largemouth bass weighing 13 pounds or more, caught January to March) and multiple Legend Class entries (bass of 13-plus pounds caught April to December). During the 2023 collection season, the lake generated a record total of 15 Legacy Class ShareLunkers. O.H. Ivie’s 15 fish made up the vast majority of the 18 total Legacy Class ShareLunkers caught in 2023. These big bass are donated to the program for breeding and stocking with the goal of producing quality fish around the state. Bassmaster named O.H. Ivie, on the Concho and Colorado rivers east of San Angelo, the top bass fishing lake in the nation for 2023. The run started in 2021, when the lake delivered 12 Legacy Class Lunkers, but some could argue the spark was actually lit in 2020. That’s when, on the final day of the collection season, James Maupin of Cypress landed the first Legacy Class fish from O.H. Ivie since 2012. That fish, incidentally, was one of only four Legacy Class fish submitted to the ShareLunker program across the state that year. Little did anyone know at the time that the O.H. Ivie entry would be the first of many to follow over the next three years. Except maybe for Kyle Brookshear, who was the ShareLunker program coordinator at the time. His statement announcing Maupin’s catch proved to be a foreshadowing of things to come. “We have been patiently waiting for O.H. Ivie to produce another ShareLunker Legacy Class bass and are extremely excited to receive this fish to cap off the collection season,” Brookshear said in 2020. “The lake produced multiple bass weighing more than 13 pounds from 2010-2012. That was also the last time their selectively bred offspring were stocked into the reservoir. There is good probability that this fish is one of those offspring stocked eight to 10 years ago.”
