The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's ShareLunker program has posted an educational video on its Facebook page detailing the collection of 44,000 eggs taken from Toyota ShareLunker 531, caught at Falcon Lake earlier this month. It shows Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (TFFC) hatchery staff removing the eggs from the spawning mat, counting them and placing them into a hatching jar.
The eggs will hatch in 3 or 4 days, and the fry will be raised to about 1 1/2 inches in length before being stocked.
ShareLunker 531, a 14 1/4-pounder, was caught by Gary Wingate of Amarillo and is the first ShareLunker to spawn this season. Multiple spawns from the same fish are not uncommon. Six of the current entries are pure Florida-strain largemouth bass and are being held for spawning. Those fish came from Falcon, Austin (two fish), Fork, Ray Roberts and O.H. Ivie.
So far this season 12 ShareLunkers have been caught from six different lakes: Falcon, Austin, Fork, Toledo Bend, Ray Roberts and O.H. Ivie. Each lake producing an entry into the ShareLunker program during the season receives a portion of all the fingerlings produced.
Pure Florida-strain ShareLunkers are paired at TFFC with pure Florida males that are themselves the offspring of ShareLunkers. This selective breeding process is intended to result in offspring that have the best possible genetics. Appropriate measures are taken to ensure that genetic diversity is maintained.
DNA testing allows TWD to determine the parentage of and relatedness among ShareLunker offspring.
