It’s official: The 9-pound, 11.3-ounce smallmouth bass caught Oct. 30 by Austin Schiefer of Menasha is the Wisconsin hook-and-line record for the species, according to the Department of Natural Resources.
Schiefer caught the bass while fishing the Oconto County waters of Green Bay with his friend Ted Johnson of Waupaca. The smallie was 23.5 inches long, according to the state listing of the record.
The fish was weighed Oct. 30 on a certified scale in Oconto and inspected Oct. 31 in Brussels by Department of Natural Resources fisheries staff.
The DNR reviewed the application for the fish and verified the record on Nov. 3, according to Karl Scheidegger, DNR fisheries biologist who coordinates the Wisconsin fish record programs.
The fish was originally recorded as 9.7 pounds but for consistency in units the weight was converted to 9 pounds, 11.3 ounces in the state listing.
Schieffer’s fish eclipses a 9 pound, 1 ounce smallmouth caught in 1950 on Indian Lake in Oneida County.
Other old records listed by the DNR for popular game fish include the walleye record (18 pounds) from 1930, the largemouth bass (11 pounds, 3 ounces) from 1940, the musky (69 pounds, 11 ounces) from 1949, the northern pike (38 pounds) from 1952 and the tiger musky (51 pounds, 3 ounces) from 1919.
For information on Wisconsin’s record fish programs, visit dnr.wi.gov.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Smallmouth bass caught on Green Bay verified as state hook-and-line record