Huge largemouth hits jig in weekday team tournament
Well, if you’re only going to get one good bite in an entire day of bass fishing, at least it can be a real good bite.
That’s what angler Steve Ford of Fayetteville was thinking in March of 2018 when he caught a single, Jordan Lake bass at a Goodyear team tournament on the North Carolina reservoir.
His bass weighed 11.85 pounds, bringing he and son Colin $200 for winning the big-fish pot in a weekday tournament that drew 20 boats.
“We’ve really been catching them, but this big fish was the only one we caught,” Ford said. “We just couldn’t get anything started. After I caught that big fish, I said, ‘All we’ve got to do is catch some to go with it and we’ll win,’ but all we had was one short fish I caught.”
Ford said the big bass hit around noon, while he was fishing a black/blue jig in Beaver Creek, a tributary of 13,940-acre Jordan Lake southwest of the Raleigh-Durham area.
“I was fishing a little rocky point in about 6 or 8 feet of water,” Ford said. “She didn’t even thump the jig. I was just winding it, and then I didn’t feel the jig any more. I saw the line twitch, and I set the hook. Then she liked to broke my rod.
“She came up the first time and swirled, and I thought it was a 7- or 8-pound fish, but when Colin netted her, he said she’d weigh 10 or 11 pounds, easy.”
At the weigh-in three hours later, the bass weighed 11.85 pounds on digital scales, roughly 11 pounds, 13 ounces. Ford said it was his biggest bass ever.
