Michigan Largemouth Bass Record ?

[MIbassyaker]

Nice job!

 

A little googling around turns up some rumors on another message board that the Wamplers Lake bass was disputed and ultimately determined to be a Florida strain (and therefore not caught in MI, contrary to what was claimed), based on a scale.  I can't find any actual verification of this, but there must be some reason the fish didn't count as a new record, especially if the DNR knew about it.

[12poundbass]

1 hour ago, MIbassyaker said:

Nice job!

 

A little googling around turns up some rumors on another message board that the Wamplers Lake bass was disputed and ultimately determined to be a Florida strain (and therefore not caught in MI, contrary to what was claimed), based on a scale.  I can't find any actual verification of this, but there must be some reason the fish didn't count as a new record, especially if the DNR knew about it.

A record this old I’m not surprised that people will try and fake a new record. 

[Paul Roberts]

Some possible good news: Climate change has been affecting warmwater fishes in the N (vice-versa for some coldwater species) for some time now. This may be the best explanation for the new WY record LM (11.5lb) that broke the former record by over 4lbs. WY had one of the smallest record LMs until now. So, there is hope, at least as far as warmwater fishes in the N goes.

 

I talked with a guy who claimed to have caught a 9-6 here in CO (not far from the WY border). I flat didn't believe it. Then a buddy of mine here caught an 8-11. So...

[Blaine Donders]

I’ve personally never talked to anyone in Michigan that has caught a big mouth much over 7#.
I grew up on Cooper Lake in Jackson county, and caught a 6 pound bass and witnessed one close to 7 as well, both in that lake. We went out and spotted at night, as we had seen several lunkers in there, and we saw some pigs. I doubt they were 10 pounds, but they were far larger than the 7 pounder I saw caught. 
The rumor always was that a 10.5 pounder came out of there in the 60’s. May have. Maybe not. 

[TheBasslayer]

On 6/9/2019 at 8:53 AM, 12poundbass said:

In Michigan 99.9999% of our lakes are natural glacial lakes. There are a couple impoundments.

I’m not a researcher but I’d like to see if collectively we Michiganders could dig up more information about these fish, news articles, pictures, or anything. Maybe master angler or tournament regarding other giant bass being caught. 

 

I’ve talked to a few guys who tournament fish Big Pine and they’ve said 6 pound bass regularly and some 7’s come out of there so the gene pool must be pretty good.

Other people have probably said this, but in master angler records there is a 10.00 pound bass in master angler archives caught in Limekiln lake in Kalamazoo. I'm pretty sure Limekiln lake, where the 10 pounder and a 9 pound 12 ounce bass is a lake in the water system that is in the Condo complex that my grandma lives in!

[12poundbass]

3 hours ago, TheBasslayer said:

Other people have probably said this, but in master angler records there is a 10.00 pound bass in master angler archives caught in Limekiln lake in Kalamazoo. I'm pretty sure Limekiln lake, where the 10 pounder and a 9 pound 12 ounce bass is a lake in the water system that is in the Condo complex that my grandma lives in!

I’d be moving in with Grandma and fish that thing every chance you get. 

[TheBasslayer]

35 minutes ago, 12poundbass said:

I’d be moving in with Grandma and fish that thing every chance you get. 

That's pretty much what I do now lol

[derek kohl]

I knew the man who caught the state record on Alcona Pond. It was mounted and in his house. Alcona pond still has large bass in it. My personal best weighed during a tournament  on Alcona Pond was 10.25 pounds. I personally  believe  there are bass in Alcona Pond today that could beat the state record.

[softwateronly]

6 hours ago, derek kohl said:

I knew the man who caught the state record on Alcona Pond. It was mounted and in his house. Alcona pond still has large bass in it. My personal best weighed during a tournament  on Alcona Pond was 10.25 pounds. I personally  believe  there are bass in Alcona Pond today that could beat the state record.

Every now and then I get on a bite on 2 little lakes in MI that absolutely destroy my preconceived notions of the quantity of 5lb+ some of these 200 acre or less lakes hold.  I know its a far cry from DD bass, but the right water with enough of the right prey outproduces my expectations by a mile.  I'm pretty sure I saw a 9lb+ follow and my A rig hooked up to a 3.5lber all the way to the boat last week.  So I believe in the possibility...

 

scott

[MIbassyaker]

6 hours ago, derek kohl said:

I knew the man who caught the state record on Alcona Pond. It was mounted and in his house. Alcona pond still has large bass in it. My personal best weighed during a tournament  on Alcona Pond was 10.25 pounds. I personally  believe  there are bass in Alcona Pond today that could beat the state record.

 

Wowza!  When did you catch that beast?  It's reasonable to expect a lake that produced one would produce others.  If you told me ten DD largemouth were caught in Michigan last year, I would be more likely to believe they came from the same 2 or 3 lakes than from 10 different lakes.

[12poundbass]

Wow! I just finished reading through again and what a fun thread! We all worked together to dig up info and even had a few non Michiganders chime in as well. Does anyone else have any new info to bring to the table? 
 

1 hour ago, MIbassyaker said:

 

Wowza!  When did you catch that beast?  It's reasonable to expect a lake that produced one would produce others.  If you told me ten DD largemouth were caught in Michigan last year, I would be more likely to believe they came from the same 2 or 3 lakes than from 10 different lakes.

If I remember right, one of the lists I looked at (maybe one of the MA lists) and there were a few lakes that produced several giant bass and it seems there were a few names that showed up on the list several times. I believe Kalamazoo had one particular lake that produced several DD bass. 

[jtharris3]

On 6/10/2019 at 10:02 AM, 12poundbass said:

Oh I missed the biologist part. When you mentioned it the first time I thought you were referring to MA not MI. I thought the lack of any biologist eyeballs on a potential state record was pretty bad even for Michigan, I guess I didn’t read far enough or overlooked it. My brain is small, my hair is blonde, and I’m left handed so cut me some slack. ?

 

The rain stopped so I can finally get out and get some fresh air, I was losing my marbles there for a minute. ?

I just read through this thread too. I don’t have anything to add except, I need order some brown lizards! ?

[JHauler]

Im gonna have to take a trip to alcona then ? btw i think if we had more trout stocking on inland lakes like in the 70s and 80s, we’d have more giants

[TheBasslayer]

On 4/13/2021 at 7:19 PM, 12poundbass said:

Wow! I just finished reading through again and what a fun thread! We all worked together to dig up info and even had a few non Michiganders chime in as well. Does anyone else have any new info to bring to the table? 
 

If I remember right, one of the lists I looked at (maybe one of the MA lists) and there were a few lakes that produced several giant bass and it seems there were a few names that showed up on the list several times. I believe Kalamazoo had one particular lake that produced several DD bass. 

Yes Kalamazoo has a lake that produced a 10 pounder and a 9 pounder. It was in the 90's though, but maybe it still has some big fish in it! And if my memory is correct, Limekiln lake is right in my Grandma's condo system! 

On 4/14/2021 at 3:05 AM, jtharris3 said:

I just read through this thread too. I don’t have anything to add except, I need order some brown lizards! ?

Ikr, that is what the guy in Limekiln Lake caught it on

[Bigbass201]

Lake Diane has been mentioned by the DNR in the past as producing the next possible record.  You don't catch many there, but there are some giants swimming in that lake.  My biggest from there is 6-8.

[Okiebassin]

I grew up bass fishing West Michigan waters in the 90’s. We had access to a small private lake in rural Kent Co. that produced several large bass. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to catch a few bass 4-6 lbs every trip. I caught a bass I believe to be over 8 but couldn’t verify without a scale. The lake also had gigantic snapping turtles and I’m assuming very little to no pike. I think it’s a possibility that a DD bass may be swimming there today. I have lived in Oklahoma since the early 2000s and caught several fish over 8 and I believe the bass I caught in MI was 8-9 lbs. 

[12poundbass]

1 hour ago, Okiebassin said:

I grew up bass fishing West Michigan waters in the 90’s. We had access to a small private lake in rural Kent Co. that produced several large bass. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to catch a few bass 4-6 lbs every trip. I caught a bass I believe to be over 8 but couldn’t verify without a scale. The lake also had gigantic snapping turtles and I’m assuming very little to no pike. I think it’s a possibility that a DD bass may be swimming there today. I have lived in Oklahoma since the early 2000s and caught several fish over 8 and I believe the bass I caught in MI was 8-9 lbs. 

Rual Kent county you say....care to disclose the name of the lake? 

[Keegan J]

I have been thinking about whether a almost 12 pound bass was even possible in Michigan in the past, so I have done a little digging, mainly on the alcona dam record. I have found that when they built the dam there was a steady population of trout that had inhabited that stretch of the Ausable. 

The trout could have had a large impact on the record, in addition to the dam. My uncle's brother has talked about a guy that caught a 9 1/2 lbs largemouth caught out of Fletchers, but i've never confirmed it. I have also been looking into the lakes above, and below Sanford lake and I believe that once the river starts to fill up more and more we could see a influx of giants caught out of there often, but I guess time will tell. 

[12poundbass]

Welcome to Bassresource Keegan. Thanks for digging this up. I think those of us Michiganders who dug up info on the state record really enjoyed doing so.

[MIbassyaker]

I maintain that, unless climate change increases the growing season in MI so much as to overcome the effects of fishing pressure, the Michigan largemouth record will not be broken.

 

The first problem is growth rate -- A typical bass lives 5 to 10 years. In MI, a 10 year old largemouth bass is about 5lbs.  To reach DD size, a bass would probably have to live to around 20 years. To live that long you would have to NOT get harvested or otherwise be killed, or die naturally, before reaching that size. That's really quite a tall order.

 

The second problem is fishing pressure. There is simply no way of getting around the facts that:

(1) growing seasons up here are short, so you have to live longer to grow bigger. the longer you live, the greater chance you will have of getting caught.

(2) because of recreational development, technology (e.g., FFS), and human population growth, the chance of any bass being caught is a LOT greater now than it was just a few decades ago (when the 1934 and 1959 records were caught)

(3) Being caught reduces your chance of survival.  Greater chance of being caught means greater chance of being harvested. Even if you are not harvested, it means greater chance of being mortally injured, mishandled, deep-hooked, kept out of water too long, etc.  And that's assuming you survive natural hazards like birds, otters or winterkill.

(4) Even if you survive, being caught previously reduces your chance of being caught again.  It has been established in both laboratory experiments and field studies that Bass learn to avoid lures on which they have been previously caught (provided they can tell the difference between the lure and real prey).  This is the main reason why bass are typically harder to catch in heavily fished waters, even when catch-and-release is practiced. 

 

Thus, any bass large enough to break the State record would likely be one with 20 years of experience not being caught. And chances are, if you haven't been caught before, you won't get caught in the future, before the end of your life. 

 

It's not impossible, but given the circumstances seems vanishingly unlikely to me.

[Jar11591]

It seems like most state records coming from northern states with a growing season of only 4-8 months or so, are not typical by any means. What I mean is these fish to me seem like total genetic anomalies and must have an extremely rare disposition to growing to freakish sizes. These fish throw the typical growth rates for northern bass out the window. Couple that rare freak disposition with defying the odds of survival to predation or natural death and you may be left with a bass in a northern climate that is able to reach double digits. And even then, that bass needs an above average food source. But but all these things happening to the same fish probably accounts for 1 out of hundreds of millions. I think freak mutation plays a bigger role than anything else with a double digit bass in a northern state. 

[Dwight Hottle]

Just saying because nobody is catching one doesn’t mean a DD doesn’t exist in MI waters. If a body of water has the right balance of bait to predators it can happen. Look at the recently verified 10 pound smallmouth caught out of Canadian waters in Lake Erie up at Peele Island. Just further food for thought. 

[casts_by_fly]

Another thing to consider is 'new lake' phenomenon.  When a new lake is built and fresh fish are stocked, the bass will have a higher than normal growth rate for a while.  My dad is seeing this in one of his home lakes (that I fished with him a bit last year).  It was drained for a couple years and then refilled/restocked.  The lake was dry- there was a 3' wide creek down the middle that could hold minnows and that's it.  All fish currently in there came from state stockings, of which I asked the regional biologist for records.  He and I had some back and forth about my/my dad's observations on size and age.  The first bass were stocked in 2020 as fingerlings.  In 2023 at 3 years old, a typical bass in PA would be around 10" (3" per year growth rate).  In a new lake 12-15" would be normal (4-5" per year).  Throughout the summer between us we managed to catch upwards of 250 bass from that lake across 8 trips or so.  The normal fish that you expected to catch was 16-18".  There was a year class of fish that clustered together all in the 16-18" range (5-6" per year growth).  Of the ~250 bass I would say 80% were in that range.  There were equal numbers above and below it with few in the < 12" range, though I suspect that has more to do with how/what we were fishing with than the lake itself.  Biggest fish were in the 20" bracket and just under 5 lb mostly (my dad might have caught 2 that topped 5 if I remember correctly).  They were also heavy for their weight.  For both PA and NJ, a 15" fish is going to average right around 2 lb, 16" around 2.5, 17" around 3#, and at 18" you can expect about 3.5#.  These fish were a solid 1/2 lb heavier or more for a given length.  An 18" exact fish on a dink board was pusing 4.25#.  we caught quite a few that were 4.5# and just a touch over 18".  Heavy, solid fish.  The pictures aren't great but all three of these are over 18" and 4.5#.  Will this growth rate keep up?  At some point it will taper.  I suspect he's going to catch a bunch of 5-6 lb fish out of there next year.  The main forage the state is stocking is golden shiners, but they are also putting in bluegills and trout (for people to catch).  A 9" trout is already on the menu for a 4# largemouth and it doesn't take many of those to accelerate growth.  I can't wait to see what this lake does the next couple years.  I only wish it wasn't trout stocked so that it was fishable in the spring without hundreds of other guys trout fishing (you dont' go there before june).

 

All of that is to say that its not out of the realm in some unique circumstances to significantly outdo the 'norms'.  Over time lakes will come to equilibrium based on the nutrients and baitfish available.  If there is a steady stocking of baitfish or a stream of nutrients to boost productivity you never know what will change in the equilibrium.  A 12 lb bass is a lot, but a lake with an established population of 5-8 lb fish could pop out a 12 if there's a sudden stocking of trout for instance.  

 

 

 

 

 

[gimruis]

I agree with what most of @MIbassyaker posted above.  Lots of good data points in his post.

 

I will play devil's advocate a little though.  Fish in the northern sector obviously don't have the accelerated growth rate because of this thing called "winter."  However, the pressure is also not nearly as high as it would be further south when bass can realistically be targeted all year long.  There really is no fishing pressure on them for months at a time because its either just too cold and/or there's ice.  Sure you could say ice fishing for bass is possible, but not really.  People don't target bass through the ice.

 

The state record largemouth here in MN is 8 pounds, 15 ounces and is actually not that long ago.  It was caught in 2006 out of a small, west metro lake.  Is a 10 pounder doable?  I say yes it is.  Big Stone Lake along the MN-SD border is fast becoming a largemouth stronghold, whereas it used to be primarily be a walleye/perch fishery.  Same with Mille Lacs and smallmouth.

 

Just my 2 cents

[Pat Brown]

I got nothing to offer other than philosophy and anecdote: 

 

I believe that much bigger fish exist up north than we know about.

 

I also think electronics and techniques are finally coming together in a way that could locate these fish up north.  Michigan has to have one or two bodies of water that are heated year round/power plant lake maybe?

 

River systems that don't freeze?

 

Stuff like that seems likely to be where you'd get a DD in MI