Fished deep in the hill country and the Bluegill, Redbreast, and Redear were very active. Fish were holding close to grass beds in about 3 to 6 feet of water. Made two cast in a row and caught two record fish. The first cast I caught a 9" Bluegill, and the second cast I caught a Redear 9.90" in length. The certified weight of the Bluegill was .54 lbs. and the certified weight of the Redear was .60 lbs. Records application were sent to Texas Parks & Wildlife for their review. Both fish are pending water body records. I caught about 15 fish and kept some for the dinner table. Fish were caught off the bottom with a slow retrieve. Catching back to back record fish. It just don't get any better!

Congratulations on the waterbody records. You are definitely the waterbody king. Was it a new waterbody for you?

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Congrats Chuck on your new records

Thanks Barry, GTrigg, and Leo for the replies. Barry: Yes Sir new waterbody for me. I have fished it only once before a year ago. I have just now started fishing it again. I have several other target fish to get. I plan making it one of my regular spots.

WTG Chuck and congratulations


Side note: I like your shirt🤩!

Thanks Yesenia. That shirt is was cleaned once a month during the fall and early spring fishing season. Now it's cleaned after every fishing trip. Wife's rule!

Congrats...Just curious...what was the previous water body record that you beat ?

Thanks Steve for the reply. These two fish were the first records for sunfish on that water body. I did not have to beat a record. The last records I had to beat were this past summer and spring. I had to take back a few that some fishing buddies had taken away.

Good on your wife!

Yep!

I bet they tasted as good as they looked!! Well done Sir!!

Thanks JJ4MEL for the reply. Yes Sir, they were delicious.

Chuck, congratulations for the new records. Do you ever use live Crickets?
Reason I ask is because back in the hay day of Fairfield when it was a hot water lake and the biggest bluegill and red ear were mostly caught on live crickets.

There was coppernose and native bluegill, and it seems like the natives would grow as big as the coppernose and red ear but I might be wrong about that. Worms would mostly catch the smaller ones. They’d bite small curly tail jigs and most small crappie jigs but the big ones always were caught on live crickets.

I was single and lived in an apartment back then and wound up raising crickets in my spare bathtub LOL.
I fished Fairfield a LOT.
Amazing how much difference there was when the electric plant was running and the lake was hot water year round.
It quit being a magical place after that. 😔

Thanks Jon for the reply. I can count the times on one hand that I have used crickets for bait. When I have used them I did catch some very nice Bluegill and Redear. It does seem to me that the smaller Bluegill and Redear tend to leave the Crickets alone. I have had no problems at all catching big sunfish using worms. Worms are easy to keep, easy to get year around and just about every fish loves a worm. I call the worm "The Bait of Champions"!