next state record likely to be broken?

tswoboda wrote:

Catch & Release season still wouldn’t make them eligible for weight records

Good point. I’m glad they’re adding other species to the C & R length category though.

gim wrote:

, Brent Ehrler caught over a 7 pound smallmouth out of Mille Lacs way back in 2015

IIRC in 2105 anything over 20 inches was C&R. There were several stories going around the Mille Lacs tourney weigh ins and formica flats that 8+ pound smallies were caught, brought to reliable scales, weighed and then released. Since this was technically illegal, you are not going to see guys holding those fish up for pics.

-J.

Jon Jordan wrote:

IIRC in 2105 anything over 20 inches was C&R.

I think you meant 2015.

I was at the weigh in both in 2015 and 2016. Plenty of bass over 20 inches brought to the stage and held up during the Bassmaster AOY events, including Seth Feider’s bag of 15 fish that weighed 75 pounds. Bassmaster Elite is not a catch and release model. They are a live weigh in format of 5 fish each angler. They had a special permit for it.

Edit, now I see it was actually in 2016 and 2017. My initial post of 2015 was a year off.

Pretty sure they had a special permit. Both to cull and weigh SMB.

Edit to add this link:

http://www.wired2fish.com/fishing-industry-conservation/dnr-rules-on-fishing-on-mille-lacs-in-2016

-J.

Here’s some photos of the event with anglers holding their catch on stage. Including Ehrler’s smallmouth that was 6 pounds, 10 ounces.

Biggest ups and downs during Mille Lacs

Not sure if 8lb will ever be broken and if the 8lb is legit. I have been fishing ML every summer for smallmouth since 2013 and since 2017, when I took part in the DNR smallmouth study, have recorded all the smallmouth caught from my boat. This year’s total was 442.

I have weighted only two fish that entire time and one this fall was just over 7lb and only one fish has been caught over 22″. So maybe with the warming water trend, smallmouth will get larger over time, but currently I don’t think there is an 8lb out there.

Brent caught that fish the last day of the event. Is so happens that on the down day, I tried to fish the West as some of the bigger bags had been coming from the West side but was blown off so decided to put in at the Red Door and having never fished the area, the owner directed me to a hump. I went back the next day to fish the same hump and to my surprise Brent was sitting on the hump and I watched him catch that fish. There was a lot of excitement in his boat. KVD was fishing in that general area also but of course he was only throwing cranks.

The state record SMB won’t likely be caught in the summer – IMO. It (along with the fish I was referring to) will be caught in October.

-J.

Jon Jordan wrote:

The state record SMB won’t likely be caught in the summer – IMO. It (along with the fish I was referring to) will be caught in October.

Are you referring to the new C & R length state record that’s going to be implemented in 2025 or the traditional weight record? My understanding is that smallmouth fishing for harvest closes the second Sunday in September, so its only open to C & R beyond that.

That being the case, the weight record would have to occur sometime between mid May and early September. Not in October.

MLF Biggest Fish 2022 was 6.22SMB on Mille Lacs. However it will be a prespawn or fall/winter fish.

gim wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Jon Jordan wrote:</div>
The state record SMB won’t likely be caught in the summer – IMO. It (along with the fish I was referring to) will be caught in October.

Are you referring to the new C & R length state record that’s going to be implemented in 2025 or the traditional weight record? My understanding is that smallmouth fishing for harvest closes the second Sunday in September, so its only open to C & R beyond that.

That being the case, the weight record would have to occur sometime between mid May and early September. Not in October.

You’re correct. I should have said next 8+ pounder rather than state record.

-J.