Teen angler catches 14-pound bass

Fifteen-year-old Peyton Sorrow caught this 14-pound bass in a Greenwood, S.C. farm pond in March 2019.

15-year-old lands double digit bass after losing another

At some point everyone who fishes has to deal with the disappointment of losing a really big fish. Few gain redemption the same day.

Peyton Sorrow, 15, was fishing a private pond in Greenwood on a Sunday afternoon in mid-March when he set the hook on a largemouth bass that he and his fishing pal, Andrew Price, estimated at nearly 10 pounds. He played the huge bass to the boat. But the fish threw the hook and swam off as Peyton watched in disappointment.

That disappointment was abated somewhat a short time later when he boated a bass that weighed close to 6 pounds. Then, a few casts later he experienced full redemption.

Peyton cast a Colorado blade spinnerbait up near a tree in the Greenwood private pond. He started to retrieve it when it just stopped. “Hung up,” he thought and gave the rod a couple of hard jerks.

When the line began to move and started pulling the johnboat, he realized immediately this was a much bigger fish. He set the hook and began reeling, putting a huge bend in the 7-foot-1-inch medium heavy Invoker Series Ark rod.

Suddenly, the fish jumped. The teenager knew the bass on the other end of the line was even bigger than the 10-pounder that got away.

“I started freaking out then,” he said. “We had a net, but it was not big enough to land the fish, so Andrew lipped it.”

Angler released trophy fish after taking measurements and photographs

They took the huge bass to the bank where Andrew’s father, Andy Price, took pictures and helped weigh and measure it for a replica mount by a taxidermist.

“Then we put it back in the water because it was full of eggs,” Peyton said.

The fish weighed 14 pounds even, just 2 pounds, 2 ounces shy of the state record for largemouth bass. That record is held by two anglers. P.H. Flanagan of Manning, caught his huge largemouth in 1949 out of Lake Marion. And Mason Cummings of Ridge Spring, landed his record bass from an Aiken County Pond in 1993.

Before the 14 pounder, Peyton’s biggest bass was a 7 ½-pounder he caught from the same pond. But he has had some outstanding fishing success as a member of the Eagle Eye Anglers Fishing Team. Although a 9th grader at Greenwood Christian School, he competes with the Eagle Eye Anglers at Greenwood High School.

A 5-pounder he caught anchored the winning weight of 19 ½ pounds for him and teammate Dawson Hudson in the first tournament of the Palmetto Boat Center high school trail on Lake Murray last October. It was also the heaviest one-day catch of any team in the four-year history of the Eagle Eye Anglers.

Although active in high school sports and in The Preppy Outdoorsman men’s shop he and his mother operate in The Alcoves, Peyton still finds time to hone his bass fishing skills at least a couple of times a week. You can bet he will be doing a lot of practice in that special pond from now on.