TJ Nissen caught his first largemouth bass over 10 pounds from Lake Austin on January 27, 2011. Catching your first double-digit bass is a very special moment for most anglers, and quite frankly the majority of bass anglers go their entire lifetime without accomplishing this goal. To make things sweeter, TJ’s fish also qualified for the Texas Parks and Wildlife ShareLunker Program and was certified as the lake’s new record.
TJ gave us the tale of the fish that took the Central Texas fishing community by storm, and left the over 15 year old 14.35 pound lake record in the dust!
Lake Austin is currently drawn down to allow home owners to repair their docks and to let some of the vegetation die. I was fishing with Kevin Hoes who is a high school friend of my son. We put in at City Park around 1:30 pm Thursday afternoon. Two years ago my son and I had a lot of success throwing crank baits parallel to the rocks above City Park, so that’s where we started.
Not too long into the trip I hooked what felt to be a good fish but it turned out to be a hybrid; fun, but not what we were fishing for. A few casts later another hybrid and I started thinking maybe we should have brought a cooler and kept these guys for a fish fry!
As the day wore on we only managed one small keeper bass. As it got closer to dark we headed back to the ramp, fishing along the way. We were having engine trouble so we headed back a little early. When we got back there was still daylight left so I suggested that we try the rocks across from the park. The water against that particular bluff was deep and I wasn’t making any contact with my crank bait so I switched to a bigger version of the same bait (Bomber Fat Free Shad in a Citrus Shad color). I still was not hitting the rocks like I wanted, but I noticed up ahead that there was a dock where the piers were still in the water so we worked our way up to it.
I told Kevin that this dock, being one of the only ones left in the water, probably got fished pretty often but we might as well give it a try. He was throwing a swim bait so I tried to get him set up to throw at the piers; we each made several casts at the piers. When we were positioned in front of the dock I had a fairly clear shot under it. I cast my crank bait and it landed perfectly just off the bank and about a foot off the back pier allowing me to retrieve it perpendicular to the bank and parallel to the piers.
On about crank three she hammered it! I set the hook and it was so solid it felt like I was stuck in a rock, but then I felt her head shake and she started stripping drag. She ran towards the piers first, and then to deep water (thank goodness). I told Kevin whatever it was, it was BIG. She finally surfaced the first time and we knew it was a bass, and big one, but no clue how big. Kevin worked the trolling motor to keep us in deeper water. She made several hard runs and came up three times to shake her head. The first time she came up I could see there was only one hook in her; Kevin kept telling me to keep her head down but I was so worried that if I changed the rod angle the hook was going to come out. She came to the boat green three times, it was nerve racking!!!
Finally she was played out and on the fourth time she came in, mouth closed, and Kevin did an amazing job lipping her (we had no net) and getting her into the boat. Then the shaking took over. I’ve had buck fever before, but this bass had me shaking uncontrollably. I am not even really sure what happened in the first few minutes after she was in the boat…but I’m pretty sure I said “Holy S**t” a few dozen times! And then I said what I thought I would never say in my life, “Dude, that might be a lake record!”
Then the impact of the catch started to sink in…what do we do now? This is when great friends and family come to the rescue. One friend brought us a cooler and another one brought us an aerator. My son got me the number for ShareLunker; we paged Dave Campbell and he called right back and was quickly headed to Austin. My son drove in from San Marcos and a couple other friends drove out to meet us at the lake. My beautiful wife brought us some Please Release Me and then went and got us all pizza! What a great wife to be able to understand this insanity. My daughter came out to take pictures for me.
We waited in the park until it closed at 10 pm because we wanted to move the fish as little as possible. Dave and his crew finally arrived in Austin, we met up with him and got the official weight at 16.03 pounds!
We took some pictures and off she went to Athens. I opted to have her brought back to Lake Austin when they are done with her; TPWD said they would call me so I could be there when she was released.
This fish was beautiful! Not a mark on her. All her fins and tail were absolutely perfect, she was the picture of health. This has truly been an experience of a lifetime and I am so happy that I got to share it with my family and some great friends!
TJ’s fish was 28.5 inches long and measured 21.75 inches in girth, only three other fish entered into the Toyota ShareLunker program have been that long. The new Lake Austin record is number 22 on the list of 50 biggest bass caught in Texas.
Congratulations TJ on a truly spectacular catch! When asked where he could possibly go from here he responded, “OK, here is my first bass since ‘The One’…might as well start back small and work my way up again!”
