May 09, 2008 12:38 am
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My wife Karen and I took a trip to Scammon, Kan., not long ago. Normally that would mean that we were either fishing the pits at the Kansas State Mined Lands or eating Italian food at Josie’s.
However, this time was different. We were going to see a 14-year-old resident of Scammon who will soon have his name in the Kansas wildlife record books.
Earlier that day, I’d received a simple one-line email from my friend Philip Roth that read: “Kansas has a new state record largemouth and I got to hold it!”
I called Philip and found out that his daughter’s boyfriend, Tyson Hallam, had caught the fish. I quickly called Tyson and left a message to see if I could talk to him about his fish.
It wasn’t long before he called back and said that would be great, but would I like to come over and see the fish for myself? It was alive and well in their stock tank.
Karen and I were soon pulling up to the Hallam house in Scammon where we met Tyson and his parents, Terry and Tammy.
They took us to a 110-gallon stock tank in a shaded area. Terry lifted the bass from the water. I could do little but stare for several moments — it was beautiful. I took pictures as I gathered the story of the big fish.
On Saturday, Tyson Hallam, his girlfriend Rachelle Roth and his dad Terry were competing in the West Mineral Eagles Fishing Tournament. They were all fishing from the same boat in one of the area’s numerous mine pits.
“A private pit” is all they’d say about the location.
Tyson was using his Jimmy Houston Signature Shimano rod with a classic Ambassador 5000 bait-casting reel spooled with 17-pound monofilament line. Something big struck. He said he knew the fish was heavy, but that it didn’t put up much of a fight.
He led it to the boat easily after two minutes, lipped it and brought it aboard. Both Tyson and his dad agreed that at that point neither had any idea of the fish’s true size. Terry said he thought it might go nine pounds.
The small hand-held scale at the tournament weigh-in showed 11.19 pounds. They won the tournament. They stopped at the local Express Lane convenience store on the way home in order to get a more accurate weight. That scale read 11.8 pounds.
Once at the house, Tyson’s mother, Tammy, did an Internet search to find out just what the current Kansas record was for a largemouth bass. The excitement really began when she discovered that the record, set in 1977, was 11.75 pounds.
They called their friend and local wildlife agent David Jenkins to find out what they should do. He, along with Rob Friggeri, the local Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks fisheries biologist, arrived at the house within 30 minutes.
The group then took the giant fish to the recently certified scale at Simone’s IGA in Weir where it weighed 11.78 pounds. He had barely beaten the state record.
Tyson Hallam is a remarkable young man. I spoke with him while standing in his room filled with trophies and plaques from just about every sport as well as certificates as an honor student. In less than 30 days, he’ll have one more award, a very special and quite rare one, the Kansas state record for largemouth bass.
Karen and I had a great time visiting with the Hallam family. Terry has invited me to fish with him sometime, so Tyson had better watch out.
His record may not make it 30 years.
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