An exclamation point largemouth bass caught in northern Lake County by Brett Hively in mid-April earns Fish of the Week honors.
Kristian Hively, who nominated brother Brett, said ``Walter'' hit a perch-colored Rapala. It measured between 25 and 26 inches and weighed 9.875 pounds before release.
Kristian e-mailed:
The mouth alone measured over 6" across!!! I couldn't believe my eyes!!! What a beautiful looking fish!!! Not a record, but getting closer! After the pictures we took and couple of high fives, we set Walter free. Watching your brother catch a fish like that..........Priceless!!!
A follow-up e-mail produced these details:
The length of the large mouth bass was approximately 25 to 26 inches long and that may be modest because he did not like being measured in the boat. Yes, my brother laughed at me when I said 28 inches in the email, he said 28 inches would weigh in around 13 lbs and that would be a record fish. The girth was so big, I wish we had more time to examine the fish, but wanted to get him back in the water. We have also caught some real big perch, crappie, blue gill and pike on the lake we fish. I will send you a picture of the perch I caught, he was so big, I had no problem lipping him like a large mouth.
Now that's the storied stuff of FOTW.
E-mail FOTW nominations to outdoordb@sbcglobal.net.
FOTW tops the Midwest Fishing Report on the outdours page of the Sun-Times each Wednesday. An extended online version appears here, usually by midnight Tuesday.
This is not a 9+ pound bass!! Would you agree Mr. Bowman?
That was my thought.
Nine? No, maybe six.
Dale is not going to call these guys liars, even if their "guesstimates" are way off.
A six-plus pound largemouth in N. IL in April is a heckuvva fish.
The way it sounds to me is that some boys are jealous of a real big largemouth! A mouth that big, it's right on par with 9 lbs. Would love to fish that lake! Nice catch!
That's just a huge Bass! Pictures don't do it justice. I agree with the Bassman. Where's that Lake?
Um, that's not in "northern Lake County"!
I can tell it's where my mom lives by the town homes/condos/homes in the background. It's actually right by the Cook / Lake Co. boarder and this very town is split by the county line.
There ARE some big fish in that lake - although, the estimate on this particular one seems quite exaggerated - then again, it was exaggerated when he proclaimed the location.
Nice catch, though.