With a video camera strapped to his chest, and unbridled enthusiasm, a 13-year-old boy recently made Alabama bass-fishing history.
While the 15.4-pound largemouth bass caught by Emory Carver on June 26 did not establish a new record, it became the eighth heaviest bass ever caught in the state, according to Alabama Outdoor News.
Moreover, the fish Carver reeled from a private lake in Henry County, if the weight was accurate, was shy of the 23-year-old Alabama record (16.5 pounds) by only a little more than a pound.
Carver, who is from Vestavia Hills, joins a relatively small group of anglers who have landed largemouth bass weighing 15-plus pounds. (The world record is a tie involving 22-pound, 4-ounce fish caught in 1932 and 2009.)
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“I set the hook and it was hard to reel in,” Carver told AON. “It jumped about a foot in the air, and I thought it was 10 pounds. I didn’t know what a 15-pound bass looked like.”
The young angler who long dreamed of cracking the 10-pound barrier recorded his catch and edited some of the footage into a 21-minute video (posted above) showing some his other exploits on the lake.
The giant bass is featured briefly at the start of the video, and from 4:50 to 8:40. “Ten pounder! Ten pounder!” Carver exclaims, while reeling from the shore. “Got to get it in!”
The fish was not released quickly, and at one point it was dropped onto the grass, but it was revived and set free.
“I never thought about keeping it,” Carver said. “I wanted to throw it back so someone else could catch it when it weighed maybe 16 pounds. I’m hoping someone can make me a mount from the picture.”
Carver said he was visiting a grandparent near Dothan “and a 60-year-old man I know down there took me fishing at this private lake.”
The bass was hooked on a Texas-rigged Senko bait tied to 14-pound-test line. Carver’s heaviest bass prior to this catch weighed five pounds.
–Image courtesy of Emory Carver
