Ad blocker detected: Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors. Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker on our website.
I believe it! 4 years ago, Mike Butler and I were fishing just at the mouth of the madawaska river, where is flows into the ottawa. We were practising for a upcomming bass tournament.
Mike And I noticed 2 bass and a carp swimming over a sandbar. The 2 bass were estimated 4 pound smallmouth, giants by tournament standards on the ottawa, and the 3rd fish, the carp, which tripled the dimensions of the later two fish, was actually a another giant Smallmouth bass!!!
Mike and I have caught and seen some truley large bass over the years, however this fish eclipsed anything we have ever seen, amazing!
Both mike and I talked about it, and tried to catch her, instead of leaving her for the tourney. It was clear that this was some sort of record fish, so we tried everything. She bumped a tube jig twice and then seemed to have no further interest.
Anyways, they are out there....lets just hope that if a FH member gets a record, that they are not some DIMWIT and decide to eat a million dollar fish.
Put in live well.
Get a ruler, and tape. or both
Get a notary of the public, wake them up if you have to.
Get 15 camera's.
Get to certified scales, 2 sets if possible...
Take measeurments and pictures..L and W
Take Pictures of you with fish from various angles
Take weight, pictures of weight, pictures of fish on scale with weight displayed if possible, pictue of certified proof of scales used.
Get notaries name and info plus anyother witnesses
Write down in detail the accounts of everything from when you first cast to when you realeased the fish.
If she's a record the abouve well get you in the books, plus it gets to swim free....a fibre glasss mount can be made to exact measurments, and Iam sure the publicity well spread through north america like wild fire...
The weight cannot be verified, or substantiated. Therefore it will never go in the books as a record.
It will become a triva footnote, a joke, and a damn shame that he needed to eat that very old and toxic fish.
According to Carlander 1977
"Carlander, K. 1977. Handbook of freshwater fishery biology. Volume 2: Life history data on centrarchid fishes of the United States and Canada. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. "
SM Bass live from 8 to 14 years and average size ranges from 12 to 19 inches for a mature bass.
Now its a big fish thats for sure but I do have some questions. How many bass has anyone caught that had a girth that was bigger then the fish? Do you know what a 25" girth looks like?
Oh course it was filleted and there will only be questions about that great fish...
Maybe he can mount that picture of himself that was in the citizen on his wall.
Too bad such a large fish was not released. The thought of him digging in the trash for entrails and grabbing the head/fillets from the freezer to weigh it after the fact is kind of funny though.
When it all settles down I think he will realize what he has lost and realize the idiocy of what he did.
He'll be crying over those awful expensive fillets that probably taste like wood.
scuro wrote:I'm looking at the picture and his three fingers under the fish. The fish is large but 12.4 pounds?
I'm with scuro. This looks bigger than any smallmouth I've ever landed, but still a 5.5 pounder at best. I'm basing my uninformed conjecture on what I've seen in the Nickel+Club voting process. Looks to me like the camera angle magnifies the size of the fish relative to its captor.
Personally, I wouldn't retain a bass that size unless it was severely injured from the fight/dehooking. Even then it would be after a spirited rehabilitation attempt. Better, IMHO, to let the big ones go, and keep the smaller, tastier 14-15" specimens for the table.
Lunker Larry wrote:...fillets that probably taste like wood.
Definetly not anywhere near 12lbs. As pointed out above its a simple camera trick to make the fish look bigger, the size of his hands in comparison to the fish is a dead give away,
Just look as this new 9.83lbs California record smallie;
The "12lbs" smallie looks no where even remotly that big.
What really irks me about the whole thing for some reason is the 2 reporters should be ashamed of themselves....a 5 minute call to a tackle shop would have stopped this story from ever being written...reminds me of an article a few years back in the Sun about a 50 pound muskie caught by this oriental fella....the picture shown the fish was maybe 40 inches at best.....and it got printed....
So there ya have it....ya can't believe everything ya read in the newpaper...
This fish would have a hard time qualifying for the "dime" club.
Good point RJ - the reporter should have gotten his facts straight. However, I am glad it got printed. It is educational (about dealing with world records), and the part about digging through the garbage and weighing the fillets is too funny of a story to pass up.
Thanks for posting the link Matt; also great post TK.
All I can say is; be it true or not that it’s actually a potential record, anyone who catches a fish of that size and eats it is a moron.
Think of this; let’s say everything here is true, who in their right mind would eat a world record fish??? Instead of taking the proper diligence to register the fish in a manner that would verify is claim?
In conclusion I will leave you with this statement; “You know you’re a REDNECK WHEN!!!â€
, I bet that would feed at least half the trailer park 
