Outdoors Briefs

March Madness at O.H. Ivie, Hall reels in Top 50 Legacy Lunker

• Outdoors Briefs

Outdoors Writer

Lake O.H. Ivie near San Angelo continues to have the hottest hand among Texas lunker lakes. Between March 11-20, the West Texas reservoir kicked out five Legacy Class ShareLunkers for Texas Parks and Wild-life’s Toyota ShareLunker program.

The biggest belongs to Kyle Hall of Granbury. Hall caught the 15.82-pound giant on March 18. It’s the heaviest of the 17 Toyota Legacy Lunkers turned in through March 21 and No. 37 heaviest bass ever reported on Texas.

The fish lands Hall in pretty tall cotton. It’s his third Legacy Lunker in as many years. Only a handful of anglers have caught three Legacy Lunkers since the program’s inception on 1986.

Hall is the first to ever catch three in back-to-back years. Only one angler — Lake O.H. fishing guide Josh Jones — has caught four.

Hall is also the only angler with two entries on the current list of Texas’ Top 50 heaviest bass. His first came in March 2022. It weighed 16.10 pounds and ranks No. 23.

The other four ‘Ivie Legacy Lunkers were caught by three anglers. Bud Robey of New Carlisle, Ohio, Larry Walker of Irving and Scott Hines of Fort Cobb, Oklahoma.

Robey caught a 14.18 pounder on March 18. Walker landed a 13.83 pounder on March 11 and a 13.62 pounder on March 20. Hines’ fish, a 13.22 pounder, was also a March 20 entry.

As of March 21, ‘Ivie had produced 10 Legacy Class fish during the current collection season, which ends March 31. JB Thomas has two entries, followed by Inks Lake, Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend, Fort Phantom Hill and Lake Naconiche have one each.

There is also a 13.2 pounder finning around the lunker bunkers at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center that was caught from Lake Athens in February. The angler who caught the fish was disqualified from the program because he did not have a valid fishing license at the time of the catch. TPWD retained the fish for spawning.

Connell reels in $300,000 with REDCREST win

Alabama bass pro Dustin Connell is rolling in the doe these days.

Connell won the $300,000 top prize in REDCREST 2024 held March 14-17 on Lay Lake in Birmingham, Alabama.

REDCREST is the year-end championship for Major League Fishing’s Bass Pro Tour. Connell also won the $300,000 prize 2021.

He is first BPT angler with two championship wins on his resume. His lifetime BPT earnings total more than $1.7 million, most of it coming since 2019.

Connell topped field of 50 anglers to win the 2024 championship. Seven Texans were among the qualfiers.

Alton Jones, Jr. of Waco finished 2nd, $50,000; Takahiro Omari of Emory, 4th, $28,000; Dakota Ebare of Brookeland, 22nd, $5,000; Todd Faircloth of Jasper, 25th, $5,000; Alton Jones of Lorena, 33rd, $5,000; Jeff Sprague of Wills Point, 41st, $5,000; Kelly Jordon of Flint, 45th, $5,000.