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Smallmouth bass, one large claim
Arnprior man believes his 12-pounder is a record catch -- too bad he filleted it
Bruce Ward, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, July 19, 2007
ARNPRIOR - The funny thing is, Steven Grail isn't all that wild about smallmouth bass. He prefers fishing for pike and pickerel.
But Mr. Grail says the bass he caught last Saturday likely constitutes a world record. He claims it weighs an estimated 12 pounds, four ounces -- way more than the existing record of 10 pounds, 14 ounces set by a Tennessee fisherman in 1969. The Canadian record is 9.84 pounds.
But what Mr. Grail did after he landed the bass isn't funny at all, especially to serious fishermen. He filleted the fish.
Does this fish tale measure up?: Steven Grail, of Arnprior, hoists the lunker of a smallmouth bass that he pulled out of the Madawaska River last Saturday. Mr. Grail caught the fish with a worm and hook.
Chris Mikula, The Ottawa Citizen
Font: ****This is like painting over a Picasso, or turning down a date with a supermodel to attend a Senate committee hearing.
Mr. Grail's catch is now likely to live on as a fish story with a sting in the punchline.
"Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to count as a record," said Mark Cousins, a spokesman for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH), which certifies trophy fish in the province. To qualify as a record, the fish must be intact.
"The fish is supposed to be whole. He should never, ever have cut it up. The one he has may well be a world record, and I cannot believe he would fillet it. When he told me, I said, 'No, tell me you didn't do that.' If nothing else, I would want to get it taxidermied. That's an amazing fish. A 13-pound smallmouth, that's unbelievable.
"If I caught that fish ... Oh, my god, I'd have it on a scale so fast to get a proper weight on it." The OFAH has several rules and regulations that must be met before a fish can be certified as an Ontario record. Photographs must be taken and witnesses must sign special forms. It's almost like getting married, only they don't weigh the bride.
And not just any scale will do.
"It has to be a registered scale like the kind they have in most butcher's shops or post offices. And they have to send us the scale registration number," said Mr. Cousins.
The fish is then sent to the Royal Ontario Museum where an expert determines that it is actually a smallmouth bass, for example, and not a strange cross-breed of some sort.
Mr. Grail, 57, said he has been fishing for 50 years. "My dad worked for the Hydro, so we moved around a lot and I was always near water." About 5 p.m. last Saturday, he was fishing with his friend Andre Bissonnette on the upper Madawaska River, about a 90-minute drive from Arnprior.
"I always fish from the shore because I like fast water. I was at a special hole I know, and that's all I'm going to say." He caught the bass using a dew worm on a long-shank No. 3 hook and with a 10-pound test line on his seven-foot Shakespeare Ugly Stick rod.
The fish struck about 10 seconds after the line hit the water.
"I knew it was big," said Mr. Grail. "I played it for about 10 minutes, and it was jumping everywhere." When he landed the fish, the possibility that it might be a record never entered his mind. He has caught plenty of big fish over the years -- but never an oversize smallmouth. On his living-room wall, there is a mounted northern pike that weighs 25 pounds. (It's right beside a gag sign that says, "Hunters, fisherman and other liars gather here.") It was only after Mr. Bissonnette got on the Internet to check bass records that Mr. Grail realized what he had done. So he retrieved and weighed the entrails. Then he dug into the freezer and got out the fish head and the fillets, and weighed them. He said the bass was 22 inches long.
Using a complicated Ministry of Natural Resources formula, he calculated the fish's weight, then confirmed it on a scale.
"There is a formula, but it's not scientifically proven," said Mr. Cousins. "It's a lot closer for muskie or pike. The bass he caught had a 24-inch girth. The record I have is only an 18-inch girth. His bass is actually shorter but a lot bigger in girth." The problem with Mr. Grail's reconstituted bass is that it raises the question of identity, said Mr. Cousins.
"I don't doubt him at all, but what's to say they are the pieces from that same fish? We have to be very careful when it comes to records." An OFAH fish biologist will decide whether Mr. Grail's fish counts or not, said Mr. Cousins. "It's not my call, but the fish biologist told me he didn't think it could be certified." Whether it's a record or not will not change Mr Grail's plans for the fish.
"I'm going to eat it," he said.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
Just can't beleive this!!!
Can't beleive this
Sorry missed the first posting of this,upon closer look at the pictures it sure doesn't look that big at all maiby 4 or 5lbs look at the size of his hands and the fishes head.