State record smallmouth caught

Fishing with friend Ted Johnson of Waupaca, the duo had been catching and releasing bass for hours. Schiefer wanted to release the record, too, but couldn’t get anyone from the Department of Natural Resources to see the fish.

“I just hate killing (bass),” Schiefer said. “I really wanted to let it go. I got two biologist’s names and phone numbers, and tried calling them multiple times. I left voicemails. I didn’t hear anything, so my buddy stayed with the fish on the water and I drove to the bait shop to get some information on what to do.”

The friends ended up going to Thompson’s County Market in Oconto. The football-shaped bass was more than a half-pound heavier than the previous record of 9 pounds, 1 ounce.

Nearly 24 hours later, after being wrapped in a wet towel and buried in ice in his grandpa’s decades-old cooler, the monstrous bronzeback still weighed 9.67 pounds on a certified scale outside of a gas station in southern Door County. That’s where DNR fisheries biologists Logan Sikora and Jacob Steckmesser of the Sturgeon Bay office examined the fish.

Sikora said the witnessed weight at 9.7 pounds on the certified deli scale would be honored. A bump board photo of the catch Friday had the length at almost 24 inches. Whether it was from stiffening up on the ice or not, Sikora measured it officially at just a hair over 23-1/2 inches.

The girth, still impressive at 21 inches, could have been larger when the fish was still alive. Early online reports were that it was 30 inches, but that was a mistake. While doing an inspection of the fish’s entrails, Sikora said the air bladder was deflated. That could have accounted for some loss of girth, but definitely not that much.

After cutting the fish open, Sikora said it’s stomach was basically empty. Steckmesser said it was a male. Had it eaten a decent amount that day, the bass could easily have topped 10 pounds.

Schiefer credited friend and mentor Gary Adkins of Green Bay for showing him the area last year.

“I learned a lot from him,” Schiefer said.

He and Johnson launched around 7:30 a.m., and caught many bass of four to five pounds, and a few larger.

Around 2 p.m., Johnson was catching some fish in about 20 feet of water. He told Schiefer the rod he was using was too stiff for the bait he had on. He cut off the bait and tied on a different one.

As the minnow-imitator sank, Johnson said he saw a large blob appear on the forward-facing sonar, headed right toward it. Bam! Schiefer was hooked up.

The anglers caught a lot of fish with a lure Schiefer’s grandfather designed (now sold as the Beast Coast OW Sniper), as well as Johnson’s Cast Again Tackle Ringer Jig. But the lure Schiefer used on a light jighead was a soft jerkbait (Deps Sakamata Shad).

The catch finally put to rest the sixth-oldest state record on the books, a smallie reported as 9 pounds, 1 ounce from Oneida County’s Indian Lake.

Because those oldest state records did not require identification and examination by a fisheries biologist, many of today’s avid anglers are skeptical of some of the weights on the books.

That includes the top tiger muskie (51 pounds, 3 ounces and 54 inches long; Lac Vieux Desert, Vilas County, 1919); walleye (18 pounds; High Lake in Vilas County, 1933); largemouth bass (11 pounds, 3 ounces; Lake Ripley in Jefferson County, 1940); Inland brook trout (9 pounds, 15 ounces; Prairie River in Lincoln County, 1944); lake trout (47 pounds; Lake Superior off Bayfield County, 1946); and muskellunge (69 pounds, 11 ounces and 63.5 inches long; Chippewa Flowage in Sawyer County, 1949).

Two other notable 70-plus-year-old state marks that many anglers question are the northern pike (38 pounds; Lake Puckaway in Green Lake County, 1952) and yellow perch (3 lbs., 4 oz., Lake Winnebago in Winnebago County, 1954).
Schiefer’s catch may be one of the top 10 smallmouths caught, ever.

An 11-pound, 15-ounce smallmouth from Dale Hollow Lake in Tennessee is the world record. Dale Hollow had several others between 10-pound, 1-ounce, and 10 pounds, 14 ounces recorded decades ago. Meanwhile, the only 10-pound-plus smallmouth from the Great Lakes is thought to be a 23-3/4-inch, 10.15-pound female caught in Lake Erie on the Ontario side Nov. 3, 2022. Biologists determined the fish, which had a 19.38-inch girth, to be 16 years old. The bass was aged by analyzing its otoliths: inner-ear structures that develop annuli, much like the rings on a tree.