BIG BASS TRIFECTA

Ross Gomez and the big bass he calls “Queen Bertha” are back in the news again.

Gomez is a fun-loving angler from Post who spends a considerable amount of time fishing from the public dock at at the Sam Wahl Recreation Area at Lake Alan Henry, a 2,900-acre impoundment located about 45 miles south of Lubbock. He owns a kayak but has has enjoyed unimaginable success over the years fishing from the dock.

Queen Bertha is the nickname Gomez gave to a fish that can’t seem keep its choppers off his fishing lures. The female bass has a serious weight problem. But that’s hardly what makes Gomez’ story so remarkable that some might find it hard to swallow.

On Jan. 24, 2026, Gomez caught the 14.74 pound West Texas bass for the third time in four years, all from the same dock. He donated the fish to the Toyota ShareLunker program, just as he has twice before.

A little history on the fishy saga: The bass weighed 13.22 pounds the first time Gomez caught it in February 2023. He was using spinning gear, four-pound test line and a Bobby Garland crappie jig over 50 feet of water. Gomez loaned the fish to TPWD for spawning at the program headquarters in Athens. Biologists collected nearly 34,000 fingerlings for stocking in Texas lakes.

Roughly two months later the big bass was returned to Alan Henry and released, but not before biologists marked it with an internal Passive Integrated Transponder (“PIT” tag), as they do all Legacy Lunkers. Legacy Lunkers are 13-pound-plus largemouth caught during the Jan. 1 - March 31 collection season and loaned to the state for spawning.

The lifetime PIT tags emit a unique code when scanned with a special antenna. This allows scientists to easily identify the fish if happens to get caught again.

In April 2023, Gomez accompanied TPWD fisheries technician David De Leon on the live release of the 13.22 pounder. The bass was transported by boat to the upper reaches of Rocky Creek and released in good shape. De Leon said the distance between the catch and release sites is about 3.3 miles.

In February 2025, Gomez caught the fish a second time off the public dock. It weighed 14.78 pounds.

The remarkable feat put Gomez in tall cotton as he became the first angler in the 39-year-history of Texas Parks and Wildlife spawning/restocking program to catch the same fish twice from the same lake. He caught the 14.78 pounder using lightweight spinning tackle. His line of choice was 8-pound-test tipped with a pre-rigged paddletail minnow colored like a baby bass.

The PIT tag indicated it was the same fish he’d caught two years earlier.

Gomez’ most recent encounter with Queen Bertha happened on the afternoon of Jan. 22, just ahead of the Arctic blast that froze much of Texas the following weekend. The weather was winter warm for West Texas.

“It was a beautiful day, about 58 degrees and calm,” he recalled.

Gomez said he got off work about 3 p.m. that day and decided to take advantage of the pending weather change and spend the rest of the afternoon fishing. He lives about 20 miles away.

“I knew the front was coming,” he said. “These Arctic blasts can make fish do some funny things. You never know what might happen.”

Gomez said he ran to one of his dock fishing buddies, James Robbins, when he arrived. Robbins was already crappie fishing at the time and said the fish had been bitting pretty good.

Gomez was armed with a spinning outfit spooled with 12-pound test fluorocarbon line tied to a MegaBass Vision 110 Pro Blue jerk bait. The $25 jerk bait dives to about 7 feet and rises slowly on the pause.

“I just started making random casts and was admiring the action of the bait, — I’ve never had a jerk bait like that before,” Gomez said. “About 10 minutes later, I paused it about two feet below the surface. That’s when she came up under it and grabbed it out of nowhere. The fish was about 10 feet from the dock. I saw the whole thing.”

Gomez knew right away he was tangling with a whopper and alerted Robbins to bring the net. It later weighed 14.74 pounds.

“I honestly didn’t believe it was the same fish,” Gomez said. “The color was little different — she looked older. I was blown away when I got the call from TFFC that it was the same fish. It was really cool deal — totally unexpected, for sure.”

O.H. Ivie Lunker no surprise

Word of Gomez’ trifecta was somewhat of a shocker, but Charles Roberts’ 13.75 pounder caught two days earlier at Lake O.H. Ivie came as no surprise at all.

“The West Texas reservoir near San Angelo has been the program’s leading contributor for the last five consecutive seasons with 57 entries — six in 2025, 12 in 2024, 15 in 2023, 12 in 2022 and 12 in 2021. Most were caught with the aid of forward facing sonar technology targeting big, suspended fish over deep water and timber.

Many bass junkies expect the lake to repeat this year, but only time will tell the tale of the tape.

Roberts caught the first Legacy Lunker of 2026 in the company of veteran fishing guide, Brady Stanford of Midland. Stanford is a humble big bass expert who is super handy with FFS. His boat has now accounted for seven Legacy Lunkers, five caught by his clients.

Stanford also holds the International Game Fish Association world record for smallmouth/largemouth hybrid with an 11.07 pounder caught from ‘Ivie in February 2022.

Stanford said Roberts caught his fish on a spinning rod matched with 16 pound braided line and a 14 pound fluorocarbon leader. He was using a jig head minnow soft plastic for bait. Not surprisingly, the fish was suspended over deep water.

Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches, mattwillwrite4u@yahoo.com.