LUNKER GENETICS: Sharelunker offspring make their debut 
on fishing lines near you… on Passport to Texas. 

This is Passport to Texas

Anglers dream of reeling in largemouth bass that tip the 
scales at 13 or more pounds. Called “ShareLunkers” TPW 
encourages folks who catch these big fish to donate them 
to Toyota Texas Sharelunker selective breeding program.

09—Since the inception of the program—we just finished our 
30th year—we’ve stocked over a million fingerlings of those 
sharelunker offspring back into the reservoirs of Texas.

Stocking lunker offspring into reservoirs increases an 
angler’s chance of hooking trophy bass. Kyle Brookshear 
coordinates the ShareLunker program for the agency, and 
says biologists can trace lunker lineage.

09—We’re able to take a small tissue sample from each 
sharelunker that’s caught. We can analyze that and determine 
who its parents are, or who its brothers and sisters are.

This year, for the first time, anglers caught “direct 
offspring” of previous lunkers. Although it’s taken a long 
time to do, it proves: from big fish, come big fish.

07— These ShareLunker’s are about 10 to 12 years old on 
average [and over 13 pounds]. It’s exciting to start to see 
results come in—and we should start to see more and more.

Anglers donated the “direct offspring” back to the 
program where they’ll become part of hatchery brood 
stock statewide, resulting in an increase of lunker-
spawned fingerlings stocked in reservoirs.

09— So long term what that means is, we’ll go from stocking 
over a million fingerlings in the past 30 seasons of the program 
to stocking 6 to 8 million annually. 

The Sport Fish restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I'm Cecilia Nasti.