Another 16-Pound Bass Recorded in Florida
Bob McNally 05.12.17
Another monster Florida largemouth bass has been caught, this fish the second 16-pounder this spring.
On March 27, 2017, Larry Wesley of Daytona Beach caught a 16-pound, 10-ounce behemoth from Lake Cherry, one of the 11 lakes in the Clermont Chain. Wesley, age 62, is a dedicated bass angler with plenty of big ones to his credit, but this fish was one of a lifetime.
Wesley, who does radio commentary on Bethune-Cookman football, took a photo of the fish and weighed it on digital scales. Wesley says the bass was 29 inches long with a 21-inch girth and a tail that spanned 9 inches across. He kept the fish and took it to a taxidermist.
Unfortunately, Wesley’s bass was not photographed on the scale, thus disqualifying it for a Florida’s TrophyCatch award.
Earlier this year on March 19, 19-year-old college student Dominic Montalto from Estero, Florida caught a 16-pound, 12-ounce largemouth in a residential pond near his home. He contacted the FWC, which verified the pre-spawn catch with a massive girth. It is the largest bass caught in the five-year history of the TrophyCatch program, and it is just 8 ounces short of tying Bill O’Berry’s official Florida state record of 17.27 pounds, which he caught in an unnamed private lake in Polk County in 1986.
