Best Fish of the Year
Now that the last outing of 2019 is over let’s look back at some noteworthy fish that were caught at outings throughout the year.
Largemouth Bass
At the Silver Lake outing on August 24th Carl Dillberg caught a fat 20” largemouth bass. It beat all other fish caught that day by 3.5” or more, and beat out all other bass throughout the year to be the best largemouth!
Carl Dillburg with his 20” Silver Lake largemouth bass.
Smallmouth Bass
The weather was rough and the fishing was disappointing for the July 13-14 outing on Sturgeon Bay. One bright spot of the outing was a beautiful 18.5” smallmouth bass caught by Al Silcroft.
Al Silcroft with his 18.5” Sturgeon Bay smallmouth bass.
Walleye
Despite some outings on good walleye water where fish in the upper 20s are possible, the biggest walleye caught this year was a 22"-incher that Jeff Sannes caught at the September Lake Delavan outing.
Jeff Sannes with his 22” Lake Delavan walleye.
Northern Pike
This species was a tough call. Dave Busscher caught a 31.5” northern on Lake Delavan in June, but the win is going to the pike Gregg Stockey caught in December from a Lake Michigan harbor. Although only 30”, Gregg’s pike was fat and is probably the heaviest one caught this year.
Gregg Stockey with his 30” Lake Michigan northern pike.
Trout/Salmon
The third of five fish on this list caught from Lake Michigan is the 32” lake trout Jeff Sannes caught on the December 7 outing. He was fishing Milwaukee Harbor and caught the big laker on a jig-and-plastic combo. In addition to being his second entry on this list, this fishalso won Jeff the Big Fish award for the year!
Jeff Sannes with his 32” Lake Michigan lake trout.
These were all beautiful fish, and we’re hoping to catch some even bigger ones in 2020!