WICHITA, Kan. _ Jeremy Conway was running late at a recent fishing tournament at La Cygne Reservoir. He had neither a game plan nor his gear ready when he launched his boat so he stopped by a steep bank he'd fished in past years. Once he had a rod ready, he made his first cast.
"It's always been a pretty good bank to fish so I decided to start there," said Conway, of Lawrence. "But I never thought I'd catch one on my first cast, or catch one that was almost 11 pounds."
But that's what he did, breaking the rare and coveted 10-pound mark for a Kansas largemouth bass. Even after swimming in a livewell all day, the fish weighed 10 pounds, 15 ounces at the tournament's late-afternoon weigh-in. The fish is thought to be the biggest largemouth bass ever from La Cygne, and probably any public water in Kansas. It missed the current state record of 11.8 pounds by less than a breakfast of a nice-sized crappie.
But Conway's trophy fish didn't come easy.
He was part way through his first cast with a Rapala crank bait when he felt a pretty hard hit, then just the deadweight serious anglers dread of a fish that's gotten tangled underwater, like in a submerged tree.
"I knew it was in some kind of brush, so I just got my boat straight over it and started pulling my line at different angles, hoping it would come free," Conway said. He knew his decision to cast 10-pound-test line, so the lure could run deeper with small-diameter line, wasn't in his favor and could easily be snapped. After a long two minutes the bass became free and came to the surface.
Conway said his first thoughts were that he'd hooked a bass of seven to eight pounds. Either would have been his best bass. Netting the fish was easy. Lifting it aboard the boat was not.
"When I got my hands on it, that's when I realized she was probably a lot bigger," Conway said. "I honestly figured she was just over 10 pounds. I got her in the live well, then called my wife and told her I'd just caught a bass bigger than any I'd ever even seen before in person."
