(Louisiana Sportsman – Dan Kibler)

Jill Hampton lives in Jonesboro, La., but has referred to herself as the “Carolina Queen.”

No, it’s not a geography problem, it’s a fishing thing.

Hampton loves to fish a Carolina rig, and after a March 5 trip with her husband, Cliff, to Caney Lake, she loves it even more, because she really caught a queen bee.

Hampton landed a 12-pound, 12-ounce monster from the waters of the 5,000-acre lake in Jackson Parish. The fish hit, of course, a Carolina rig.

“It was awesome,” Hampton said. “I’m 62, and I’ve been fishing for a long time, but I never thought I would catch one that big. I was praying the whole time she wouldn’t break the hook.”

That had happened the day before on a trip to Caney, Cliff Hampton said. He estimated that Jill had hooked a solid, 8-pound bass, fought him properly, but lost him close to the boat when her worm hook broke.

But her hook – onto which was threaded a Junebug Zoom curlytail finesse worm with a tail dyed chartreuse with Spike-It dip dye – held, as did the 20-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line spooled on a Bass Pro Carbonlite 2.0 reel paired with a Bass Pro Carbonlite rod.

The Hamptons weighed the bass, which was 27 inches long and 19 ½ inches in girth, on a set of digital scales in their boat. It came up 12-12. They ran to a lakeside store they knew had certified scales, and again, it was 12-12. A fisherman at the store offered his scales, and they showed 12-12 again.

Then, they released Jill’s personal-best bass back into the reservoir, ending a short afternoon of fishing.

“Our granddaughter had a DARE graduation at school that morning, so we went to that, then came home and went fishing,” Jill Hampton said. “We had fished every day that week, and Cliff wanted to try a new spot. It was our first spot that day, but we had fished it before.”

Perfect timing

The Hamptons were Carolina-rigging down a bank with grass, and they quickly caught three bass between them, the biggest around 2 pounds.

“We rolled up there, looking in shallow water for some beds, then he threw out a little deeper and got hung up,” Jill Hampton said. “He was sitting down in the bottom of the boat re-tying, and I got up (front) and threw out a little deeper, 7 feet. As soon as it hit the bottom, I felt her and set the hook.

“When I set the hook and felt her, she didn’t move at all, then she came right up and we saw her. We knew she was at least 10 pounds. I tried to keep her down, and she was pulling, zinging one way, then the other. I was praying the whole time she wouldn’t get off. She went back down a couple of times, and when she came close to the boat, Cliff netted her.

“I was so excited, I hollered like Mike Iaconelli.”

Cliff Hampton said the beautiful fish had a tiny blood spot on its tail, but he didn’t think she had done a lot of spawning, especially being out in deeper water.

The huge fish broke Jill Hampton’s personal record, a 10.22-pound bass from Lake Fork in Texas. They visited a taxidermist last week to plan for a replica mount.

“I’m retired and since Cliff retired, we can fish every day,” she said. “We live about a 15-minute drive from Caney.”

(article first ran in Louisiana Sportsman on March 16, 2026)