Here's the story... She caught that fish on a FHM and it was hooked pretty deep. I went to shop (50 yrds away) and got my bucket and electrolytes because I had to remove hook with forceps and seen a tad of blood. I told her it would be a shame to fillet a state record and she looked at me and said if it's a state record, I want it!
That day we caught 7 well over the state record, returned in good shape and taking weight and length measurements to keep track as we do.. I had some trouble 2 years ago when these fish were in the 10-12" range.. WR's were dropping. Some culling of about 70 8-10" smb started to show results at end of yr 3. Those YP are eating crawfish now and just blew up 6 months after starting to thin the smb out.
The day she caught this fish, she also caught 2 twins at 14.83 and 15.02". both at 2lbs, 2oz.
We will see what next year brings but I've been pulling 60-80 7-11" fish the last 2 years.
p.s., WR's were 102-110% on males that day, and 114-134% on females-as expected.