MONROE – A 24-year-old bass angler joined a select few a few weeks ago when he fished alone in a tournament, then carried what would be a 42.10-pound five-bass limit to the digital scale at Caney Lake.

Connor Nimrod’s catch wowed the crowd at the weigh-in, particularly the moment he pulled out his biggest bass, 10.09-pounder, to go along with a 9.85-pound “hawg” Dec. 16 following a University of Monroe-Louisiana Fishing Team Team Qualifying Tournament. The smallest bass in his bag was a 7-pound class bass.

“It was special. I definitely was blessed, for sure. I kept catching big ones and bigger ones. I was so jacked up,” he said a few days later after texting a photo to a local outdoors writer he has known for several years.

Nimrod and his five bass are in rarified air in bass tournament history at any level from a solo bass angler. His catch was a little less than 3 pounds shy of the solo record set by Arizona’s Dean Rojas in a Bassmaster tournament in mid-January, 2001, at Lake Toho, where his five bass weighed a whopping 45 pounds, 2 ounces.

Nimrod’s 42.10 was significantly heavier than three fairly recent 40-pound plus bags by solo bass anglers. Those big hauls were Derek Mundy’s 40-10 on Jan. 6, 2021, in an MLF Phoenix Bass Fishing League tournament at Lake Sam Rayburn; Anthony Sharp’s 40-6 in a Phoenix BFL action on Feb. 18, 2020, at Lake Sam Rayburn, and Casey Martin’s 40-11 in an FLW BFL Bama Division tournament March 7, 2017, on Lake the New Hope in Alabama.

Nimrod prefished his hometown lake and found the bass roaming around high spots in 12- to 13-foot depths.

“I thought I could catch 30 pounds,” Nimrod said about his outlook going into the derby on his home lake.

The keys to success were hard spots on the two high spots, he said. That combination triggered bites because shad were attracted to such sweet spots.

Cormorants and loons became more active when the bass started chasing baitfish, according to Nimrod.

On tournament morning, he started catching big bass on those two high spots that also featured hard areas. Then he caught bigger bass and had the five he wanted in the livewell before 10 a.m.

“I had two places. I kept bouncing back and forth. It was a magical day,” he said, noting he hooked and boated 15-20 keeper-sized bass, none smaller than 3 pounds.

After that, Nimrod spent the rest of the day mostly riding around the lake and taking the time to watch his younger brother, Dylan Nimrod, catch some sizeable bass of his own on tournament day. Dylan finished second with 26.12 pounds.

The older brother relied on a Bomber Fat Free BD5 Shad crank bait and other shad-colored Bombers to catch all his bass that morning. The fish would fight over it and if one came off, another ate the Bomber.

And they fought hard using every ounce of their weight, particularly at the boat where many of the bass would go airborne, each shaking its head. Three of them came unbuttoned, as they say.

“I could have had a bigger bag than that. They came up jumping and thrashing. I don’t know how big they (the bass he missed) were,” Nimrod said.

Several of the bass that hit the weigh-in basket had bellies swollen with eggs, particularly the 10-pounder.

“They’re definitely getting ready to spawn, probably in late January, early February,” he said.

Bass he targeted weren’t in large schools but they were bunched up over the high spots featuring hard spots.

“I took screenshots on the unit. I went back and counted them. One had like 15 fish in it, the other about 20 fish in it,” he said.

The Kansas native weighed a 25.8-pound limit of bass in a Caney Lake tournament the first week of December 2022. Those bass came from a different area of the lake than he fished on his way to catching 42.09, he said.

Nimrod graduated from ULM with a degree in business marketing in December 2022. The tournament was his swan song with the ULM Fishing Team.

He has opened his own fishing-related business, Tournament Technology, which sells Power Poles, batteries, trolling motors and, its specialty, marine electronics.