This California Mega Bass Might Not Qualify as a Record Because of a Weird Technicality

After catching one of many greatest bass ever seen in California, kayak angler Damian Thao isn’t certain if will probably be correctly licensed as a lake document. The almost 19-pound largemouth is sufficiently big to qualify as a document, however a strange state law that Thao inadvertently broke whereas transporting and weighing the fish might get in the best way of that achievement. 

In a submit he shared to Fb Tuesday, Thao owned as much as his error. He stated he needed “to be clear with the monster fish,” his personal-best largemouth bass and his first over 12 kilos. Thao didn’t reply to a request for remark from Out of doors Life on Wednesday.

“Nicely, there’s excellent news and dangerous information,” Thao wrote in his submit. “I lastly ended up becoming a member of the teener membership with this lake document fish however I ended up infringing the legislation.”

Thao defined that he was fishing from his kayak on Sunday when he hooked the large bucketmouth on an enormous swimbait, a 10-inch Megabass MagDraft in Albino Pearl. He stated it was in his first spot of the day throughout his first hour of fishing, however he didn’t title the lake.

“Fought her for 30 seconds and boated her. At first I assumed it was simply one other 10 possibly pushing 12 till I held her up,” Thao wrote. “Put her on the dimensions the primary time and she or he went round 17 kilos.”

After paddling to shore and weighing the fish on his hand scale a second time, Thao bought a studying of 17.46, which his buddy advised him was sufficiently big to qualify as a brand new lake document. They put the bass in his buddy’s livewell whereas Thao tried calling the California Division of Fish and Wildlife, together with the U.S. Military Corps ranger station, to see about getting a licensed scale delivered to the lake. He didn’t get a response, which he stated was comprehensible because it was a Sunday on a vacation weekend.

Thao determined to move the bass alive in his buddy’s livewell so they might convey it to a licensed scale, the place the fish weighed 18.75 kilos. He and his buddy then drove again to the lake and launched the large bass. By this level, Thao had crossed into legally questionable territory, however he didn’t notice it till the next day, when one other buddy referred to as to congratulate him.

“I advised him step-by-step of the day and of what I did,” Thao defined in his submit. “He double checked an knowledgeable me that although it appeared prefer it was the best factor to do; it was towards the legislation. It didn’t even click on with me till it was talked about.”

In accordance with that California law, it’s unlawful to maneuver a dwell fish from the water the place it was caught. The legislation exists to stop the unfold of invasive species and to guard native ecosystems, in accordance to the state. However by requiring anglers to kill their fish earlier than transporting them, the regulation makes California a little bit of an outlier. Different states have legal guidelines towards transporting fish alive, however they’re sometimes extra particular to invasive species or to the motion of a fish from one waterbody to a different.

Fishermen in different states frequently transport their fish alive, particularly potential records, to allow them to be weighed on licensed scales — or in some instances, donated to state-run stocking programs. This has additionally change into more and more frequent as catch-and-release fishing has grown in reputation. A lot of in the present day’s anglers, like Thao, are adamant about not killing a fish in the event that they don’t need to.

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“Not making any excuses, simply need to be clear and come clean with my actions,” Thao stated in his submit. “ studying lesson, by no means thought I’d discover myself able to carry the unofficial lake document fish in my arms.”

A number of other social media users have re-shared images of the large bass and heaped reward on Thao, who’s well-known within the kayak fishing scene for catching large California bigmouths. Amongst his accomplishments, he’s received a number of kayak tournaments and was on the USA workforce that took second place on the Kayak Fishing World Championship in 2022.

“You continue to maintain the lake document to us all!” one Fb person wrote within the remark part of Thao’s submit. “At the least the transparency will assist folks sooner or later [with] tips on how to formally get a fish licensed.”