DNA test reveals surprising origin of Texas man's record-breaking fish

A record-breaking 12-and-a-half-pound bass recently caught in a Nacogdoches lake is one of the many offspring of a another record-setter caught several years ago in a Laredo lake, roughly 450 miles apart.

In December 2004, Jerry Campos was fishing for bass on Falcon Lake in Laredo and he caught a 14-pound largemouth bass, later named the ShareLunker 370. Nine years later, Allen Lane Kruse of Nacogdoches set a water-body and catch-and-release record for Lake Naconiche when he caught the 12.54 pound bass.

DNA testing showed that the recent catch is the son of ShareLunker 370, which spawned at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. Campos had entered his fish into a "ShareLunker" program, which allows catchers to share their prize fish with others. Fingerlings from the program that spawned have stocked into more than 60 reservoirs across Texas.

If Campos had not submitted his catch, the Nacogdoches fish would not have existed for Kruse to catch.

The Lake Naconiche fish has even more connections to the program, including its father in Lake Fork in 2000, its grandmother from Lake Fork caught in 1994 and a great grandmother caught in Gibbons Creek in 1988.

The mother of the new fish produced 12,699 fingerlings, some of which were kept at the Athens facility to breed more fish. The fish caught by Kruse was one of 173 adult offspring that were released in Lake Naconiche in 2009. The adult fish are now 8 years old and are almost old enough to attain the 13-pound size necessary to be entered into the Toyota ShareLunker program.

Officials said Lake Naconiche is poised to produce big bass for years to come.

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DNA test reveals surprising origin of Texas man's record-breaking fish