Catch and release is a religion for the people fishing the lake on an everyday basis. The 10 pounder was returned to the lake. My personal best was an 8.1 pound Largemouth that I originally thought was a Ky. bass since it had a nice tooth patch in the right place. There is a population of Ky Bass in the lake and they do get to a nice size in Beaver Lake. The lake made a reputation for itself in the early 80's as having one of the best ratio's of fish caught per hours fishing time of any lake in the Commonwealth.
Early spring is the best time to tie into one of the lunkers that inhabit the lake.
In February, March, and April, there is a die off of the largest of the gizzard shad. This provides a great opportunity for the larger bass to feed using less energy, since only the larger fish can get these large shad down. Slow rolling a spinner bait with a large willow leaf spinner and casting large shad type crankbaits works well. I do not know the reason for the die off of large shad, but I have been told that it has something to do with the larger shad not handling the low temperatures at that time of year. Beaver Lake also supports a nice population of large shellcrackers, and channel catfish.