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With winds gusting to 30 miles per hour Monday afternoon, Brett Harris couldn't see the bass nests along the shoreline of the lake at Tyler State Park. It was his experience on the 64-acre lake the last five or six years that told him they would be there.

The Tyler fisherman had only been casting the watermelon lizard for about 20 minutes when the sow, a 14.5-pound ShareLunker and lake record took the bait.

"I was just fishing normal like I always do," said Harris, who minutes after handing over the fish to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials for the hatchery program was back on the water. "I didn't see her. It was windy and I was just casting and winding."

The bass, the 450th all time in the ShareLunker program, measured 27.75 inches in length and 20.25 inches in girth.

Harris' bass is the second ShareLunker from Tyler State Park. That is one behind Purtis Creek, which, with three, is the state park lake with the most entries. The first was a 13.28-pound bass caught by Tyler's Brad Sharp in March 2000.

To most the state park lake is better known for its winter rainbow trout fishery and summertime swimming. However, Harris and a select group of anglers have been targeting the lake in late winter each year because of the big bass there.

"I have been tight-lipped about it, but now it is out," Harris said of the diminutive fishery. "Depending on the day there is a close-knit group of people who all know each other, there may be about three boats."

The reason for the potential of a big bass at the state park is a management method tried and true in California for years.

"I have one word for you - trout," said TPWD fisheries biologist Pat Beck.

Going back to 1983, the lake has been stocked annually with protein-rich rainbow trout. This year there were more than 6,000 released. What the bass don't eat, the fishermen are allowed to catch.

The lake has a good enough native forage base to support a decent bass fishery, but it is the trout that puts it over the top.

It is not certain if the ancestry of Harris' bass can be traced back to Sharp's ShareLunker in 2000. As part of the program today, fingerlings collected from ShareLunker lakes are released the following summer into the lakes that produced entries. That wasn't necessarily the case in 2000.

Sharp's fish, a pure Florida, came 10 years after a 1990 TPWD standard stocking of 6,500 Florida bass fry into the lake. That catch came just three months after a lake-record 12.66-pounder was caught.

The lake's only other Florida-strain release was a stocking of 8,000 Florida/native bass cross fingerlings in 1985.

"There has been no genetic stuff done on Tyler State Park," Beck said. "I wish I knew what this was so I could tell more about it. At 14 pounds it could be a pure Florida."

The fish was taken Monday to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens, and as it does on all fish TPWD will conduct a DNA test. If the fish, which has not spawned, is a pure Florida it will be put in the department's hatchery brood program for up to a year before being returned to the lake.

Like Harris, TPWD is concerned about an explosion of fishing pressure. At less than 70 the lake can handle only so much fishing pressure. Up until now most of the fishing at the lake is from the bank and for the trout, sunfish and some catfish.

"They say in small impoundments you should take out about 25 pounds of fish per acre, but I don't think anyone takes anything out of there," Beck said.

The lake does have a boat ramp. While there is no limit on the number of boats allowed at one time, reality is that the lake will only accommodate so many at once. Considering the amount of midlake water, 10 boats at once could be a crowded condition.

The Tyler State Park Lake is the third smallest public water to produce a ShareLunker. The smallest was Red Hills, a 19-acre Sabine River Authority recreational area in San Augustine County. The second smallest was Ratcliff, a 45-acre lake inside the Davy Crockett National Forest. Ratcliff has produced two ShareLunkers.

At this point Harris' bass is the largest of the nine ShareLunkers this season. The next on the list is a 13.87-pound fish caught March 9 on Lake Waco.

For donating the fish to the program Harris will receive a replica mount and ShareLunker clothing. If it remains the largest fish in the program he will also be awarded a lifetime fishing license.

Steve Knight is the outdoor writer for the Tyler Morning Telegraph. He can be reached by calling 903-596-6277 or by e-mail at outdoor@tylerpaper.com.