PALESTINE BY THE NUMBERS
4
Number of MLF Bass Pro Tour pros from Texas competing in REDCREST 2021 ( Alton Jones , Alton Jones Jr ., Todd Faircloth and Jeff Sprague ). Palestine is similar in a lot of ways to the other big-bass factories that proliferate the Lone Star State , so all four should be pretty familiar with what the fishery has to offer .
13.22
Weight ( in pounds ) of the lake-record largemouth , caught by Casey Lee Laughlin on a Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Craw on February 1 , 2014 . That bass measured 26 1 / 4 inches long .
16
Average depth ( in feet ) of Lake Palestine . Featuring tons of standing timber , hydrilla and floating and emergent vegetation , there likely won ’ t be many bass caught offshore during REDCREST . Palestine is a dream destination for anglers hoping to run into a double-digit largemouth fishing shallow cover and structure .
40.08
Reported largest five-bass limit on Palestine , caught by Billy Ferguson and Sonny Booth in a Media Bass tournament in 2013 . That limit included a 13.14-pounder , which stood as the lake record largemouth for less than a year .
41.56
Winning weight ( 10 fish ) for Rob and Mike Burns , who won the Texas Team Trail Championship on Palestine in June of 2015 . Given the quality of fish Palestine holds , it won ’ t be a surprise to see someone shatter the 100-pound mark on any given day during REDCREST , especially given the timing of the event when pre-spawn fish should be chock-full of eggs .
98.50
Weight ( in pounds ) of the state-record flathead catfish , caught on Lake Palestine on December 2 , 1998 by James Laster , who hauled in the behemoth on a crappie jig tipped with a minnow . Everything really is bigger in Texas .
135
Miles of shoreline on Lake Palestine . The 18- mile-long impoundment of the Neches River system runs north to south with a maximum width of about 4 miles and a maximum depth of 58 feet .
155
As in the Highway 155 bridge , which “ separates ” the lake into two sections . Generally , the latewinter and early-spring fishing is better to the shallower north end of the lake , which sports a ton of standing timber that can make navigation treacherous . The upper end warms first and has produced the two largest bass out of Palestine that have been officially weighed .
345
Elevation above sea level of Lake Palestine . Dammed up for industrial , recreational and municipal purposes , lake levels rarely fluctuate more than a couple feet .
1986
The year the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department enacted a 14-inch minimum limit for keeper largemouth , which began a major turnaround for Palestine . Once Florida-strain largemouth started getting stocked in 2004 , the lake that was once the crown jewel of Texas bass fishing began its ascent to being perhaps Texas ’ best hidden gem .
5,720
Length ( in feet ) of the Blackburn Crossing Dam , an earth dam 75 feet in height at the south end of Lake Palestine . The dam holds back water from the Neches River and Kickapoo Creek .
25,560
Surface area ( in acres ) of Lake Palestine . That ’ s plenty of room for REDCREST competitors to find something all to themselves each day of the event .
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