The 17.9 pound bass reportedly caught this week at Contra Loma Reservoir has been discovered to be a hoax.

The bass did weigh 17.9 pounds when it was found floating dead along the shoreline at 6:30 a.m. The angler picked up the fish and weighed it on a hand scale, took the accompanying picture, and put it back in the water. Three hours later, it was brought to the kiosk by another angler claiming it was caught with a Banjo Minnow at Channel Point.

The good news in this is that it wasn’t caught and killed. The big female apparently died a natural death. The other news is a reminder Contra Loma is a bass factory. It is the most bountiful bass lake in the East Bay, according to dive surveys taken by East Bay Regional Park District biologists. The lake record is better than 18 pounds. Odds are there’s a record waiting to be broken in the Antioch reservoir.

NorCal.FishReports.com regrets is overzealousness in reporting the catch and stand corrected.