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July 23, 2009
 In
1964 Hunter Yarborough caught and had mounted a beautiful 11 pound
4.5 ounce bass.
Fast forward 44 years. In August 2008, Mr. Yarborough came across
some 44 year old paperwork that indicated the fish was a state
record bass. A catch which had inadvertently been overlooked
decades.
A call to the Jackson Fisheries Office initiated a search which
uncovered a letter dated November 19, 1964 authored by Mississippi’s
first Fish Chief, Barry Freeman.
In December of 2008, Mr. Yarborough delivered the mounted fish to
the Jackson Office. Photographs were taken and scales counts were
made of the mount. These characteristics were complied and provided
to Dr. Todd Slack the ichthyologist at the Mississippi Museum of
Natural Science Dr. Slack forwarded the information to 22 national
fish identification experts. Because the fish was a mount certain
key elements, like the pyloric caeca and tongue tooth patch, were
not available in the identification. The majority of the experts
identified the mount as a Largemouth bass with some characteristics
of Spotted bass. With all the votes in, the fish makes the
Mississippi fish record book as the new state record Hybrid Black
bass at 11 lb 4.5 oz. Check out the other
Mississippi Fishing
Records |
