``He jerks the bobber around until he lands the big one,'' his dad Greg said.

In July, Jordan Michael Jackson of West Pullman caught a 25-inch, 9.5-pound bigmouth buffalo at Plainfield Fishing Resort in the southwest suburbs.

Gracie Brasfield beat the boys on her first bass outing on July 22. At a pond typical to suburban Chicago fishing, she latched into other good fish with a minnow under a bobber.

``She beat the boys in their own game and loved it,'' proud dad Travis Brasfield said.

He also added, a perfect scenario for taking kids fishing:

My friend Ed and I met up a local pond right after work. Between the two of us we had packed cars full of chairs, gummy worms, cookies, paper candy buttons and a cooler full of water - ready to go on a misson.

Alex Olear, 11, of Pleasant Prairie, Wis., kept alive the family tradition, landing this 14.3-pound lake trout while out with his granddad, the venerable Jerry Pabst, on Capt. Bill Kelly's Leprechaun charters out of Diversey harbor.

In another girl beats boy tale, Michelle Cozzie of Berwyn brought in a 13.75-inch perch weighing 1 pound, 2.3 ounces in late July. It topped the perch (1-1.8) her brother Michael caught a couple days earlier and entered in the Richard J Daley Memorial Sportfishing Derby.

I most love, if you look close in the photo, that somebody at Henry's, where the fish was weighed, had to hold the perch for the photo.

Kody Crifase, 10, caught this 18-inch, 4.5-pound largemouth bass on a popper at Woodhaven Lakes in Sublette on a trip with father and grandfather. His first largemouth will be mounted.

Andrew Peterson of Mount Greenwood caught this nice salmon (just under 30 inches and about 15 pounds) while fishing out of Waukegan harbor on Fin Addict earlier this month on an outing with his godfather E.J. Errico.

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.

E-mail FOTW nominations to outdoordb@sbcglobal.net.