Oklahoma State Records for Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass Broken in Span of Eight Days
Mike Bolton 04.02.12
Oklahoma’s state records for both largemouth bass and smallmouth bass have tumbled in an 8-day period.
Ryan Wasser of Pocasset caught the 8-pound, 7-ounce smallmouth bass on a shaky head rig on Lake Lawtonka. The fish was 23 1/8-inches long and had a girth of 18 inches. It was the third time that the smallmouth record has fallen in the past four years.
The previous state record smallmouth was caught in 2006 by Steve McLarty of Broken Arrow, at Lake Eufaula. That smallmouth weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces.
Just eight days before Wasser’s catch Benny Williams Jr. Caught a new state record largemouth weighing 14 pounds, 12.3 ounces from a 78-acre lake in LeFlore County.
Mike Bolton, 56, served as the outdoors writer for the Birmingham News for 25 years until his retirement in 2009. He won the AP Sweepstakes Award for best sports story in Alabama on eight occasions and his stories on the Cahaba River were nominated for a Pulitizer Prize. He has also contributed to Sporting Classics, Bassmaster Magazine, Buckmasters Magazine and other national pubications.
