Outdoor News: How To Enjoy The Outdoors: Holdenville angler lands two lake records from same lake in one month’s time

Holdenville Lake is on a roll, and so is Allan Brooks of the city of Holdenville. On April 16, Brooks caught an 11.4-lb. largemouth bass that measured 23.5 inches in length and 20.5 inches in girth. The fish is a new lake record for Holdenville, taking the spot from a 9.8-lb. bass caught last month by none other than Brooks himself.

For a lake under 1,000 acres, Holdenville is proving to be a hotspot for anglers. In May of 2010, Scott Allen Babb caught a 9.1-lb. largemouth bass, and Holdenville also has yielded high numbers of bass in electrofishing surveys by the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation in recent years.

The three big bass caught at Holdenville in the last year may only be a few among many that anglers have pulled from the lake — many that Oklahoma anglers may never get a chance to celebrate. But thanks to the Wildlife Department’s Lake Record Fish Program, Holdenville Lake and the fish it produces are starting to get the recognition they deserve, as well as more than 40 other lakes across the state.

“In the past, you didn’t hear about a lot nice fish caught from lakes unless you knew the angler, or unless the fish is some kind of state record,” said Nels Rodefeld, information and education chief for the Wildlife Department. “The lake record fish program is changing that, giving anglers the opportunity to recognize big fish and the lakes that produced them, not to mention the anglers who catch them.”

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation’s lake record fish program was initiated in 2008 to recognize big fish from certain lakes and the anglers who catch them.

The program has grown from about a dozen lakes at its inception to more than 40 lakes today. So while anglers all over the state can go fishing just for leisure, they also have a chance of putting their name in a record book.

Species eligible for spots in the lake records book include blue, channel and flathead catfish and largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass in addition to crappie, paddlefish, striped bass, striped bass hybrids, sunfish (combined) walleye/saugeye and white bass. Minimum weights are set for each species and are detailed on the Wildlife Department’s Web site at wildlifedepartment.com.

Anglers who catch a potential record from a participating lake should contact designated business locations around the lake that are enrolled as lake record keepers. A listing of official lake record keepers is available on wildlifedepartment.com.

Once it has been determined that an angler has landed a record fish, the media is notified and the public will be able to view information about the catch on the Wildlife Department’s Web site at www.wildlifedepartment.com.

An easily-operated search feature is available on the website that allows those interested to view a wealth of lake record fish information, ranging from the size of record fish caught to what kind of bait or rod and reel was used to catch them.

All past and current state record fish are registered in the lake record fish program as records for their respective lakes.

For more information about the lake record fish program, or for more on bass fishing in Oklahoma, log on to http://www.wildlifedepartment.com/.

Recent Lake Records

Lake: Grand