Night Owls: Big ones out to play at J.B. Thomas

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  Night Owls: Big ones out to play at J.B. Thomas

  Night Owls: Big ones out to play at J.B. Thomas

Outdoors Writer

Lake J.B. Thomas in West Texas continues to crank out fairy tale fishing trips filled with heavyweight bass to shock the imagination.

Chris Chopelas of Alpine has witnessed the magic multiple times with the help of fishing guide Christian Gladfelter, owner of slaunchedguideservice.com. On the night of August 15, Chopelas experienced what may be the best after hours fishing trip ever recorded on Texas waters.

In eight hours fishing, Chopelas boated multiple bass over eight pounds, including three over 10 pounds and two over nine. His heaviest five fish weighed nearly 55 pounds.

One of bass had a really serious weight problem. The fish weighed 14.09 pounds on a digital scale. That’s slightly heavier than the13.79 pound official lake record caught in January by Lawrence Lee of Tolar.

The big bass was a real night owl. Chopelas caught the fish at about 2 a.m. All of the fish are documented in photographs on Gladfelter’s Facebook page.

“It was truly a wild night,” says Gladfelter. “It was one of those fishing trips I’ll never forget.”

Gladfelter is a forward facing sonar expert who has been using the technology since it was introduced by Garmin in 2018. He uses LiveScope exclusively to find and identify big fish on J.B. Thomas.

“I put the trolling motor down and don’t cast until I find what looks to be a big fish, eight pounds and up,” he said. “Sometimes it might take 15 minutes and sometimes it takes an hour or more.”

Gladfelter pointed out that J.B. Thomas bass are different animals than those in most lakes.

“These fish aren’t spot oriented to structure,” he said. “The just show up in random areas. You might find an area with bunch of big ones one day and they’ll be some place else the nest.”

Gladfelter said all of Chopelas’ bass were caught within the same 50-yard stretch in 10-15 feet of water using one bait — a 1/2 ounce jig he calls the Space Invader. Hot pink was that magic color that night.