We Have A New Record

[Mike Clifford]

7.2 lbs. Lake Michigan

 

[Mark K]

There is a pic of it on a certified scale.  Cool.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/188766751780168/

[Bart Durham]

Amazing! Lake Michigan catch I see as many predicted.

[Mike Clifford]

It is or has already been released back into the lake as well. This record was only possible because they changed the regulation for Smallmouth in Lake Michigan from Catch and Release only to one trophy Bass. Guys in tournies caught records for decades previously.

[Mark K]

35 minutes ago, Mike Clifford said:

It is or has already been released back into the lake as well. This record was only possible because they changed the regulation for Smallmouth in Lake Michigan from Catch and Release only to one trophy Bass. Guys in tournies caught records for decades previously.

I don't remember it being catch and release but I could be wrong.  it's at least been since 2012 (the last reg guide I could find on line),  1 over 21".  Which was 7 years ago.  Fishing Lake Michigan for smallies is hard.

When they had the Classic here in '01 , I don't think there were any really big fish caught.

[Mike Clifford]

March 2004 it was changed. 

The final weigh-ins at the Classic were fun to see, but we enjoyed the Trisha Yearwood concert in Soldier Field as well!

[Mark K]

1 hour ago, Mike Clifford said:

March 2004 it was changed. 

The final weigh-ins at the Classic were fun to see, but we enjoyed the Trisha Yearwood concert in Soldier Field as well!

 

Okay so 15 years.  That's my point.  This was a hard fought battle and I am so glad to see this wasn't an "accident" fish.  With all the talk over how big lake michigan SMB are, you would think it would not have taken this long.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/3/27/18444327/finding-a-weigh-certified-scale-and-record-fish-around-the-chicago-area

Dale starts that 2019 article out.

 I still think the Illinois-record smallmouth bass will be caught on the Chicago lakefront. But then I’ve thought that for nearly 20 years.

That second guy I know..sort of..  He is one of my nephew's friends and a good and very nice guy.  I was pretty certain he was going to break the record since he works his ass off for it.  

If you go out on the lake in a boat where the bottom is not coated in algae it's coated with sandpaper and razor blades so dragging a jig on the bottom means slowly cutting your line.  It's really that bad, the bottom will cut 10 lb braid like butter. 

Pretty cool though, that while it would be perfectly legal and reasonable to keep that fish weigh it,  mount it,  eat it.... whatever that both guys went thru pretty great lengths to keep it alive and release it... just out of effin' respect and nuthin' else. 

 

[Mike Clifford]

It was fascinating to see developments during our Classic here, as the anglers could technically go as far as the Kankakee on the river system. On practice day, we witnessed the pros pulling their boats out of the Cal Sag in Alsip. Biggest fish of the tournament was just over 4 lbs, but it isn't as striking as a Classic in Pittsburgh a few years later where Big Bass weighed just over 2 lbs. Woo Daves' haul of 5 smallies at 13 lbs. on Day 2 was the biggest bag of the Chicago Classic. Kind of surprised me that they never really traveled to find some heavier green fish.

[Mark K]

2 hours ago, Mike Clifford said:

It was fascinating to see developments during our Classic here, as the anglers could technically go as far as the Kankakee on the river system. On practice day, we witnessed the pros pulling their boats out of the Cal Sag in Alsip. Biggest fish of the tournament was just over 4 lbs, but it isn't as striking as a Classic in Pittsburgh a few years later where Big Bass weighed just over 2 lbs. Woo Daves' haul of 5 smallies at 13 lbs. on Day 2 was the biggest bag of the Chicago Classic. Kind of surprised me that they never really traveled to find some heavier green fish.

Woo Daves was the only one that targeted smallies exclusively as I remember.  His bag was 14 fish at 27lbs.  Under a 2 lb average.

You constantly hear about giant fish in Lake Michigan, yet you really don't see or at least I don't see many people catching them.

Here is Ike downtown

 

[Mike Clifford]

I don't see them catching hawgs either, because I'm not there, but I do see the photos.  THE Ralph Steigers and many others are posting some absolute Megatrons day in and day out. What we DON'T really know is where they go in the hottest days of summer. Even the tracking program by Savitch many years ago didn't do much to solve the riddle. Of course, now we have reefs and underwater cameras and YouTube.....

[Mike Clifford]

I do remember reading that the large females were tracked to deep, cool water in the summer while their male (smaller) counterparts were staying more shallow in order to forage. The reason being that they expended a lot more energy protecting nests during the spawn and so forth.

The answer to "why travel so far?" was....because they can. The whole "small fishbowl vs. large fishbowl" theory. But the studies also found that they always come back home, even in such a large footprint.

[Mark K]

 Dale bowman did an excellent write up.  

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/10/15/20916246/joe-capilupo-catches-illinois-record-small

I saw a video of it being released today and it was in a cooler looking reasonably  shit kicking. 

Holy cow, a shore fisherman tageting bass, caught and released alive, the state record.  What a great fish story.

 

[Mike Clifford]

The only club in the state devoted to smallmouth bass fishing. A new state record is caught and only 2 of us are discussing it on the club forum. I can't even begin to understand the reasoning for this, but maybe the idea of message boards has run it's course. This should be fun to talk about, right? Crickets.....yikes.

FB, Instagram, Twitter and even Tik Tok are blowing up over this. Something is definitely wrong with this picture.

[Steve S.]

There's been talk of making Great Lakes warmwater species a separate record class, just like they separate inland trout from lake Michigan trout. Any thoughts on that?

The potential for growth is phenomenal in the Great Lakes. I believe that this will be a record shattered a few times. I have friends who were catching big smallmouth in LM well over 20 years ago. I'm surprised its taken this long, but perhaps the need to own a record is not as important to some anglers therefore goes unreported.

Personally, I prefer river to lake fishing. Still is very cool and very impressive.

[Mark K]

13 hours ago, Mike Clifford said:

The only club in the state devoted to smallmouth bass fishing. A new state record is caught and only 2 of us are discussing it on the club forum. I can't even begin to understand the reasoning for this, but maybe the idea of message boards has run it's course. This should be fun to talk about, right? Crickets.....yikes.

FB, Instagram, Twitter and even Tik Tok are blowing up over this. Something is definitely wrong with this picture.

Most of the fishing boards that I see have pretty low traffic.   Most people go to Facebook and other anti-social media for their viewing of arms length fish pictures and other fake news. Did you catch the line in the article where the biologist says you don't need to hold that fish out.  LOL

13 hours ago, Steve S. said:

There's been talk of making Great Lakes warmwater species a separate record class, just like they separate inland trout from lake Michigan trout. Any thoughts on that?

The potential for growth is phenomenal in the Great Lakes. I believe that this will be a record shattered a few times. I have friends who were catching big smallmouth in LM well over 20 years ago. I'm surprised its taken this long, but perhaps the need to own a record is not as important to some anglers therefore goes unreported.

Personally, I prefer river to lake fishing. Still is very cool and very impressive.

I don't know how you would police something like that, seems like it would be easy to cheat.

I think there are bigger bass than this in the lake, they are just hard to catch and it's what makes this totally cool happening from shore, especially sweetened by it happening to a regular dude, not some body with a $60K boat.  The fact that he a 7lb bass alive is freaking incredible.  It's a great story, makes me want to start fishing the lakefrfront more.

I saw a photo- a DNR cop showed me of a smallmouth a guy had in a livewell about to release.   This was on the lake. It was enormous, I think it was bigger than this one and the guy was not shoving it into the lens.  The cop told him it was probably the state record and he was within his rights to keep it.  He released it and was not interested.  Which is fine,  you don't really have anything to gain.

 

[Tim A]

Working at Henry's part-time since this Summer, I was lucky to work the day Joe brought this fish in and had the DNR document everything. I was also one of only 3 witnesses to the live release. The fish took some time to fully relax and rehabilitate in the tank at Henry's (cold water in the tank helped), but was easily in great shape at the time of release.  Good to see this hunt have a good ending for the record fish

[Eric]

Great story. Love that the angler took care of the fish and ensured a healthy release. That is really respectable. Kudos to him!

I’d like to see IL have a record for both lake AND river smallmouth. That would better represent the species.

[Mark K]

1 hour ago, Tim A said:

Working at Henry's part-time since this Summer, I was lucky to work the day Joe brought this fish in and had the DNR document everything. I was also one of only 3 witnesses to the live release. The fish took some time to fully relax and rehabilitate in the tank at Henry's (cold water in the tank helped), but was easily in great shape at the time of release.  Good to see this hunt have a good ending for the record fish

Henry's is so Chicago.

We love going there, when my kids were little they were fascinated with the big containers of "crabs" .  You got to love the bait menu

http://www.henryssports.com/bait-menu.html

Great that were so prepared for this record.

 

[Bart Durham]

The new record holder, Joe Capilupo, has accepted our invite  to attend our next Blowout as an honorary guest.

[Gary L]

I suspect that it will be broken again by a Lake Michigan Smallmouth. Great place for Smallmouths to eat and grow! Congratulations to Joe Capilupo on catching such and awesome Smallmouth!

[mannym]

The main reason I got my scuba certificate this year was to be able to swim in LM looking at these big fish the lake has. Oh and ship wrecks too. 

Now I just need my "needs work"  vintage wood yacht with twin 5.7 L  mercruisers to refurbish and go!  

[Joe R]

6 hours ago, mannym said:

The main reason I got my scuba certificate this year was to be able to swim in LM looking at these big fish the lake has. Oh and ship wrecks too. 

Now I just need my "needs work"  vintage wood yacht with twin 5.7 L  mercruisers to refurbish and go!  

Go up to door county they have close in wrecks with clearer water there have done a fair amount of swimming up there when water is warmer say from mid July through early September have seen countless smallies that is when you understand the concept of schooling hooligan bass who roam. They cover a lot of water.