I caught this nice bass during my practice for the season opening FLW Stren tournament on Lake Falcon in Zapata, (in deep south) Texas. I had been on a nice school of fish when I decided to put the old faithful flippin' stick down and try to see what other baits I could coax the bass into biting.

I decided to use the 7'' True-Life Gold Tilapia Swimbait, due to the bluegill model?s high catch rate on my guide trips at Lake Fork. I chose to use only two tungsten balls for the slower sink rate, rigged on 25lb florocarbon line. Paralleled the road bed?s tree line in 8-14ft. On the first ten casts I had several followers, so I backed  off and cast a little further to give the fish time to commit to the bait before they were so close to the boat.

On the next cast and about half way to the boat my 8ft Powertackle swimbait special rod loaded up, and the fight was on. The fish was trying to jump out of the water but she was so fat she couldn't manage to get out anything over her head out. At that point I knew she was a good one, but I had no idea until I netted her on how big she really was. After snapping a few pictures she was quickly released to spawn and make more huge bass for the future anglers to enjoy.

Thank you,
Cody Malone
www.codymalone.com
www.lakeforkpremierguideservice.com