I don’t know how many ways we can say this but it bears repeating at least once more: Lake Austin is one heck of a fishing hole.

Two catches during the last week in February of giant largemouths pushed the Travis County lake’s all-time total for fish over 13 pounds to 12.

That ties Austin with Amistad for sixth place on the state’s list of trophy bass producing lakes. It also brings Austin’s number of Toyota ShareLunker bass to three for the year. Only O.H. Ivie, with six so far, has more 13-pound-plus fish for the 2011 season.

Billy Weems of Liberty Hill caught one of the two fish that just went into the all-time record book. That bass weighed 13.21 pounds. Then Cody Smith of New Branufels added a 14.28-pounder to bring this year’s total to three.

Back in late January, T.J. Nissen caught a 16.03 pound bass that established a new record for Lake Austin.

Lake Fork remains the state’s undisputed leader in trophy bass with 246 fish placed in the lunker program. However, there hasn’t been a single fish entered so far this year from Fork.

In fact, the 11 entries so far this season have come from just three lakes, the six from Ivie, three from Austin and two from Falcon.