A largemouth bass pulled from Nickajack Reservoir on a cold February morning is now the biggest ever recorded in Tennessee. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency confirmed on May 11 that Darren Nunley of Whitwell had broken a state record that had stood for more than a decade.
Nunley's fish weighed 15 pounds, 7.5 ounces and measured 27 and 7/8 inches, topping the 15-pound, 3-ounce mark Gabe Keen set on Chickamauga Lake back in 2015. The certification was not quick. The bass was first weighed on a certified scale at a grocery store in Whitwell, and TWRA then sent a fin clip away for genetic testing before the agency finalised the results on May 9 and announced the record two days later.
The catch itself was almost routine. Nunley was on the water with guide Hensley Powell around 8 a.m. on February 28, working a half-ounce green pumpkin ChatterBait — the Z-Man and EverGreen JackHammer — on 17-pound fluorocarbon line and a Shimano reel. He was retrieving the bladed jig over emerging vegetation in a pocket where the bottom contour changed when the fish hit.
"I think every fisherman dreams about catching the biggest bass in the lake," Nunley told Wired2Fish. "But most of the time, that doesn't happen."
Nickajack is a 10,370-acre Tennessee River impoundment near Chattanooga, part of a chain of reservoirs — Chickamauga among them — that has built a national reputation for oversized largemouth. The fertile, current-fed lakes of the region routinely produce double-digit fish, and they have turned this corner of southeast Tennessee into a magnet for anglers chasing a personal best.
That reputation is part of the reason the agency takes its time. Rather than rush a record claim, TWRA had the fish genetically tested before adding Nunley's name to the books — a level of scrutiny that matches the stakes for what is now the largest largemouth ever documented in the state.
Keen's 2015 catch had itself ended a benchmark that survived for decades, and it took 11 years for anyone to better it. Nunley's fish clears that bar by four and a half ounces. In a state where trophy bass have become a genuine tourism draw, a new state record is more than a personal milestone — it is another data point in the case that the Tennessee River lakes are among the best big-bass water in the country.
For now the record belongs to a Whitwell angler who was simply out fishing with his guide on a winter morning, throwing a lure that thousands of bass fishermen own. The fish of a lifetime, it turns out, can still come on an ordinary cast.
