Under the hot midday sun, Corey Knowlton casts a snake-like lure towards the center of a lone brush pile. Watching his line fall slack he engages the reel’s handle just before the rod is almost yanked from his hands. Instinctively he sets the hook with the force of a monster truck in an effort to keep the fish from diving deeper and breaking off. Tethered to this Texas-sized bass with 50-pound braid, he powers the fish’s head to the surface quickly ending the battle.
Corey Knowlton with one of his huge Tecomate La Perla lunkers .
“Another big one,” he says, lifting the chunky fish up for a photo. It’s the second eight-pounder he’s winched from this pile today and one of a dozen or so we’ve caught in total for the afternoon ranging in size from seven to ten-and-a-half pounds. Riding back from the lake to the ranch lodge, I examined my serrated thumb from lipping fish all day. We both agreed that these fish hit and fight harder than any largemouth bass we have encountered.
The following morning, I walked outside of the lodge to the covered awning where Corey was already waiting in the Polaris to drive back to the lake. The stifling south Texas heat already nearing 105 degrees made the Florida summers I’m used to feel like a walk in cooler. As we made our way to the main lake, I noticed several water-snakes hanging about the shoreline of the forage ponds and decided to tie on one of the 12” DOA Snakoil worms that Corey had success with the day before. I began casting it using a 1/8th-ounce tungsten weight with a 6/0 Mustad worm hook along the shoreline and in typical La Perla fashion, it was quickly devoured. Moments later Corey was congratulating me on our first bass of the day which happened to weigh slightly over ten pounds. As one may guess by noon our forearms were exhausted from setting the hook into one big fish after another to the point that we decided to head in for some much-needed air conditioning and Chef Javier’s famous fajitas.
By now you may be wondering what kind of place exists where giant bass with all the aggression of an angry barracuda will crush artificial lures throughout the day and the chances of catching one in the teens are as high as anywhere in the country. Well just about a half-hour drive south of Laredo, the 5,000-acre Tecomate La Perla Ranch is home to monster whitetail bucks and this giant largemouth bass. The ranch’s famous La Perla Lakes are a bass fisherman’s dream and the brainchild of owner Dr. Gary Schwarz. “I wanted to create the ultimate outdoor experience,” he explained. Schwarz who also serves as the co-host of The Bucks of Tecomate television show hopes to one day grow the next world record largemouth in his lakes. Over the past decade, he’s carved out over 250 acres of fishing lakes on his ranch, each constructed with strategically placed timber, rocks, islands, and beneficial vegetation to enhance the angling experience. He has constructed a network of supplemental forage ponds where shad, fathead minnows, bluegill, and prawns are grown on a daily regimen of high protein feed to then be released into the lakes stocked with genetically superior pure Florida strain bass. “To grow giant bass, you must have only pure Florida genetics,” explained retired biologist Allen Forshage, who serves as Schwarz’s technical advisor. Forsage is the former Director of the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens which oversees the Toyota ShareLunker and Operation World Record bass breeding programs. “Pure Florida largemouth have heritable characteristics which allow them to grow larger than any other strain of bass in the country.”
Overhead view of Tecomate La Perla Lakes.
This is good news for Schwarz who in 2014, signed a 15-year contract with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) allowing the agency to use one of his lakes for a program; one where the lake was stocked with fry offspring from a pure Florida 13-pound female and the male son of another 13-pound Florida behemoth. The latter’s lineage can be traced from a fin clip sample within the program’s DNA tracking system.
On average, Florida bass grow at a rate of about one pound per year in ideal conditions making most ten-pounders around nine to ten years old. However, a recent La Perla lake survey revealed dozens of five-year-old fish with weights well in excess of ten pounds; demonstrating an accelerated growth rate that almost doubles the norm.
After arriving back to the lake after lunch Corey switched to a spinnerbait and locked up with several big heavy fish over the course of the next few hours. I stuck to the Snakoil landing a dozen or more five and six-pounders before we each caught a pair of toads – ones that were 20” in length and almost this size in girth. By sunset, both Corey and I were exhausted yet satisfied that after two days of fishing we’d caught at least a hundred bass between us ranging from five pounds to 10-plus pounds.
Driving back to the lodge I was anticipating the thick juicy tomahawk steaks that Javi had timed perfectly to be waiting for us. After an incredible dinner, I went back to my room showered then called it a night. Hoping that when I awoke the next morning it wouldn’t have all just been a dream.
- For booking information on fishing or hunting the Tecomate La Perla Ranch contact Dustin at dcatrettoutdoors@yahoo.com
Outdoor Writer, Dustin Catrett
Dustin spent his childhood exploring the bass-rich ponds that once blanketed the Central Florida landscape. At age 16 he headed east to hone his skills on redfish and sea trout in the famous Mosquito Lagoon. After high school, he graduated with a degree in Environmental Science and began his career as a Senior Environmental Engineer while also traveling the U.S. as a freelance outdoor writer in search of fishing and hunting adventures. Over the past decade, hundreds of Dustin’s works have been published in numerous well-known travel, fishing, hunting, and outdoor publications throughout Florida, Georgia, Texas, California, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
