Kyle Nitschke and Tyler Goetzman are teenagers, but the 16-year-olds seem to have developed the knack for catching man-sized bass when they count the most.

The Willis High School honor students were crowned Anglers of the Year in the Ignition Bass Club Open Division after stunning the field with a monster five-bass limit that weighed 32.85 pounds during the season-ending team event at Lake Conroe on Dec. 13. They won $1,575 for their efforts.

The story gets better. Nitschke set a new Junior Angler state record along the way, catching a 13.07-pounder shortly after noon using a blue shad Rapala DT10 crankbait in about 6 feet of water. Ironically, the fish bested the former Junior Angler state record of 13.06 pounds that was set by Goetzman exactly 11 months earlier.

"It was pretty cool," said Nitschke. "I knew it was a big fish the second it took the bait, but I had no idea how big it was until I saw it jump on the other side of the boat."

Goetzman netted Nitschke's fish using the same net his father, Mark, used to scoop up his record bass at Lake Conroe last Jan. 13. That fish helped propel the father-son team to a first-place finish in a local jackpot event. They won $400.

Goetzman said he knew his friend's fish was well above average the moment he saw it.

"I figured it was close [to my record], but we didn't even take the time to weigh it," Goetzman said. "We just put her in the livewell and kept on fishing. I sure hated to see my record broken so soon. I'm just glad it was Kyle that broke it instead of somebody else. We're pretty close friends."

Like Goetzman, Nitschke elected to put his big bass on loan to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Bud ShareLunker program. The program solicits anglers to donate Texas-caught bass weighing 13 pounds or more to the state's hatchery program. Bass must be caught between Oct. 1 and April 30 to qualify.

Scientists hope to use the fish to unravel the mysteries behind big bass genetics. The ultimate goal is to produce bigger and better bass for anglers to catch.

Nitschke's bass is the second ShareLunker entry of the 2008-09 season. Goetzman's fish was one of 13 turned over to the program last year -- the fifth lowest total recorded since the program's inception in November 1986.

Despite the lull in ShareLunker donations, there was no shortage of good tales behind the biggest bass reported in 2008. Here are a few of the best:

Pamela Plummer

Lake Fork, 13.11 pounds

Earl Plummer bought a lakeside home at Lake Fork last March. Roughly two weeks later, his sister-in-law, Pamela Plummer of Ft. Worth, christened his new boat dock by reeling in a behemoth of a bass that ranks among the heaviest ever reported by a woman angler in Texas.

Fishing from shore in about 5 feet of water, Plummer caught a 13.11-pounder. It was her third cast using a Texas rig Zoom plastic worm she had rigged on a Daiwa spincast outfit with 10-pound test line.

"I was talking to my sister-in-law, and I told her I thought I had a bite," Plummer says. "When I started reeling, I told her I thought I had big bite. When the fish jumped, I said, 'I've got a real big bite!'"

It took some doing, but Plummer finally managed to bring the fish close enough to the dock that her husband, Larry, could scoop it up in the net.

"I knew right away it was a ShareLunker," Larry Plummer said. "How she managed to do it was a wonder. That fish wrapped around the dock once but came right back out. I couldn't believe that 10-pound line held up."

Brett Harris

Tyler State Park, 14.5 pounds

Interestingly, the biggest bass turned over to the program last season came from one of the smallest public lakes in the state. Brett Harris of Tyler won the Bud ShareLunker Angler of the Year title with a 14.5-pounder he caught on March 17 from a 64-acre lake located inside Tyler State Park.

The 27.75-inch bass had an equally large appetite. Harris caught it on a rainbow trout pattern swim bait. He chose the lure to simulate the hatchery-raised rainbow trout that are stocked in the small lake for put-and-take fishing each winter by the TPWD.

Harris received a lifetime fishing license valued at $600 for catching the year's heaviest Bud ShareLunker entry. The bragging rights he earned among his buddies are probably worth much more.

"There is a small group of us that fish that little lake pretty hard during the spring," Harris said. "And I can tell you, there are a lot bigger fish in there than people can imagine. It wouldn't surprise me to see a new state record come out of there. I saw a fish on a bed there two years ago that was so big I could hardly cast to it. It was huge."

Scott Campbell

Lake Falcon, 13.13 pounds

Scott Campbell, a bass pro from Springfield, Mo., notched a seventh-place finish in the BASS Elite Series event at Lake Falcon last April with his four-day total of 120.1 pounds. A sizable chunk of Campbell's total came from one fish, a 13.13-pounder that grabbed a Texas-rigged worm. His winnings totaled $19,000.

"That was a pretty valuable fish," Campbell said. "That day -- that whole tournament -- was quite an experience. What a bass lake Falcon is!"

Campbell said he caught the bass off the underwater remnants of an old homestead that was flooded when the lake was built in the 1950s. He found the spot and several others similar to it, using his Humminbird Side Imaging sonar unit during the pretournament practice period. He said the sweet spot was located along the edge of the Rio Grande River in about 25 feet of water.

The fish provided a great start for Campbell on the first day of competition.

"I caught a 6 pounder on my first cast, then I caught the 13 pounder on the third cast," Campbell said. "I could tell right away it was a giant. At first I thought it might be a catfish, but I realized pretty quick that it wasn't."

Ricky Culverhouse

Lake Waco, 13.87 pounds

The 13.87-pounder Waco's Ricky Culverhouse caught during the Robinson Bass Club's monthly event last March didn't earn him near the pay day that Campbell's bass did. But his fish rang the bell at weigh-in just the same.

Culverhouse was fishing with his team partner, Toby Adams, at Lake Waco when his line went "bump" after making his sixth cast with a Texas-rigged Zoom Baby Brushhog to an underwater hump in about 6 feet of water. Moments later, the 50-year-old reeled in a bass that was bigger than either of the men had ever seen.

"I knew it was big, but I didn't know how big until about 20 minutes later when I decided to weigh her," Culverhouse said. "My digital scales said she was over 13, so I immediately got on my cell phone and called around to get a phone number for the ShareLunker program."

Not surprisingly, Culverhouse and Adams ran away with the tournament and took the big-bass prize to boot. Their take was $850. The bass also set a new lake record for the 8,400-acre impoundment located along the Bosque River.

Jeremy Bruton

Richland Chambers, 13.05 pounds

Jeremy Bruton of Blooming Grove was competing in a Richland Chambers Bass Club jackpot tournament at Richland Chambers Reservoir when a 13.05-pounder inhaled the Stanley spinnerbait he was working in 3-4 feet of water. He landed the fish with the help of his partner, Skip Wright.

It is likely the anglers would have won the tournament had they been able to catch a few more keepers to fill out their limit. However, with only one bass in their livewell, they finished well off the first-place mark of 20-plus pounds.

"We poked some fun at Bruton after the tournament," said Albin Pustejovsky, secretary and treasurer of the RCBC. "We told him he might have been able to catch some more fish if he had not had his nose stuck in that livewell all day long!"

Matt Williams' e-mail address is mattwilliams@netdot.com.

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