American bass-fishing YouTuber Jon B. has published a 24-hour Texas river mission in which he and co-angler Grant paddled a 12-mile stretch of Hill Country water in search of a state-record Guadalupe bass. The duo missed the record but still produced a rare largemouth-Guadalupe hybrid and one of Jon's best largemouth days on a spring river.
Jon B., one of the biggest names in US bass content with roughly six million YouTube subscribers, framed the trip as a direct response to a personal-best fish he lost on a different Texas river a few months earlier. "Somewhere throughout this 12-mile stretch is a world record bass," he tells the camera at the launch. "The fish that I encountered just a couple months ago, I actually caught my personal best on a completely different river in a completely different part of Texas. I have no idea how big it was. I wish I had a scale at the moment, but today we brought a scale. Today we brought proper measuring tools because if we do stumble upon potentially a world record, we want to document it."
The early hours of the float turn up healthy largemouth rather than the target species. "First fish of the trip. A nice probably close to three-pound largemouth. Not the intended target for our fishing mission, but a really nice bass," Jon says on his first decent fish, caught on a 5-inch Googan Lunker Log. A series of similarly fit two- to three-pound largemouth follow. "Short and stocky, dude. These fish are so healthy in here. I cannot believe it," he says on one of the better ones.
The pressure ramps up when Jon approaches a known bedding zone and drops a sight cast: "First cast that fish ate." Minutes later he admits he missed what would likely have been a five-plus-pound bass on a separate bed.
The trip's breakthrough comes late in the float, when a large eat on a Googan Filthy Frog initially fools him into thinking he has hooked another largemouth. "It's a giant Guad. Holy smokes, the freaking Guad ate the frog. That is a monster Guad. Look at the size of that guy." On the scale, though, the fish lands at 2 pounds 4 ounces — close to the Texas state record for a pure Guadalupe bass but visibly off-pattern. "Is it a Guad? There's no spots in here. Or is it a hybrid? A hybrid. This may be a hybrid. It doesn't look 100% like a Guad. This may actually be a largemouth Guadalupe bass hybrid, which does happen in this river."
Jon B. uses the fish to explain why near-record Guads can be hard to pin down in Hill Country water. "Obviously, the bass are stocked in many lakes and rivers here in Texas, and the natural fish like a Guadalupe bass isn't afraid to make babies with an LMB. They're so closely related that they can do that." The fish goes back into the river.
By the end of the float the scoreboard reads two near-record Guads in the two-pound class and a clutch of healthy largemouth. "We made it back to civilization. Wieners, a river fishing mission success. Although we did not succeed in catching a state record Guadalupe bass, we came fairly close."
The episode closes with Jon pitching flowing Hill Country water to his audience as an under-used fishery: "Texas is full of these types of rivers. You've got the Brazos River up north. You've of course got San Marcos, the tiny little Koma. There's so much flowing water in this seemingly dry state that you might surprise yourself to find and fish."
