The first Toyota ShareLunker of the season slipped in the back door of the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (TFFC) on September 28.The fish wasn’t supposed to be a ShareLunker at all. When Lanny Smalley of Athens, Alabama, caught it from a private lake near Ben Wheeler, he did not have a certified scale to get a correct weight on the fish, but he called TFFC to see if they would like to have the big bass for display.

Shortly after, fisheries technician Trey Kunz arrived to pick the fish up. “It was in a sort of horse trough cooled with well water to the low 60s, and they were supplying oxygen to the water,” Kunz said.

“The fish seemed calm and other than a little redness around the caudal fin and a little fungus on the tail appeared to be in good condition.”However, a couple of days after arriving at TFFC, the fish was showing signs of distress. “It developed an infection on its tail, I think from being handled,” said fisheries technician Shane Carter, one of the main caregivers for fish in the Lunker Bunker at TFFC. “It became septic from an internal bacterial infection.”At that point the fish was not expected to live, but Carter and his coworkers don’t give up easily.

Jimmy Callahan felt pretty lucky to have caught an 8.96 lb bass weighing during the very first hour of the Berkley Big Bass tournament. The fact that it was the only fish weighed in over the slot on Saturday, made him feel even luckier.

But then, during the last hour of the tournament, Sunday afternoon, Bob Roberts of Longview weighed in his own lunker, and Jimmy's saw his luck run out. Or did it?

Bob's fish also weighed in at 8.96 lbs.; a dead even tie. That is not a common occurrence at a big bass tournament. So who wins? The rules are clear. The top place goes to the angler with the largest second fish. Unfortunately, Jimmy never weighed in a second fish. But Bob had. His relatively puny 1.66 lb bass was worth $35,000 in cash and prizes.