A teenager from Arkansas unexpectedly caught and released a 12-pound largemouth bass while fishing for crappie, and his impressive catch was recognized by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Fisheries Division.
Logan Cernosek, 15, of northeast Arkansas, reeled in a 12-pound, 4-ounce bass during a recent fishing trip he took in Randolph County, according to a Facebook post shared by the AGFC Fisheries Division.
The ninth grader told the wildlife agency he caught the bass on Sunday, April 2.
Cernosek said he and a friend set a four-pound test line for crappie, a freshwater game fish that’s generally smaller than largemouth bass.
“I thought I was hooked on a log, but then I realized it was a huge fish,” Cernosek said in a statement to the AGFC Fisheries Division.
The AGFC Fisheries Division reports that Cernosek weighed the largemouth bass with a portable scale before he released it.
“Logan said he never thought he would catch a bass this big in his lifetime,” the AGFC Fisheries Division wrote on Facebook.
The state largemouth bass record was established in March 1976 by Tennessee resident, Aaron Mardis, who caught a 16-pound, 8-ounce bass from the Mallard Lake, which is between the Arkansas and Tennessee border.
The reported world record for largemouth bass is a tie between the United States and Japan, according to a record from the International Game Fish Association, a nonprofit fishing record keeper.
Both countries reportedly had anglers who caught a 22-pound and 4-ounce bass.
The world record bass caught from the U.S. was reportedly caught in 1932 from the Montgomery Lake in Georgia.
In Japan, the world record bass catch was reportedly caught in 2009 from Lake Biwa in Shiga, a Japanese prefecture to the east of Kyoto, located on the island of Honshu.
Beside the 12-pound, 4-ounce bass, Cernosek and his fishing companion reportedly caught several crappies during their trip and shared photos of the successful haul.
“Looks like they didn’t do too shabby on the crappie either!” The AGFC Fisheries Division wrote in reference to the pair’s crappie catch on Facebook.
