Outdoors: Angler content with his un-o-fish-al record catch

May 12—SENECAVILLE, Ohio — Record fish are the holy grail for many anglers. The fisherman who catches the biggest and the best of certain species finds that landing the fish is accompanied by a lot of prestige and recognition. And with the premier gamefish, it can be quite a lucrative experience, as well.

Some marks stand for decades and eventually seem untouchable, such as the U.S. record 22-pound, four-ounce largemouth bass caught by George Perry in 1932 in southern Georgia's Lake Montgomery. Despite the millions of bass fishermen out there, and the legions of professional bass anglers who have mastered every nuance of the pursuit of this prized species, nobody has flirted with breaking this mark.

When they are broken, fishing records are usually broken by ounces or fractions of an ounce. And very, very rarely they are shattered, demolished, or obliterated by a catch so superior that it defies science. And once in a great while, a record is seemingly wiped out, but then it is not.

Such is the case with 56-year-old John Crowe, a Cincinnati resident and a forensic chemist and investigator working for the FDA. Crowe recently caught a striped bass, or striper, in Seneca Lake near here and his fish weighed six pounds more than the current Ohio record. That is akin to someone hitting 95 home runs in the current baseball season, or someone running the 100-meter dash in eight seconds flat. Crowe's fish blew up the record.

But then, it didn't. A certain set of protocols must be followed to have a record fish certified by the Record Fish Committee of the Outdoor Writers of Ohio, the official gatekeepers of the state angling records. This group's guidelines include having the potential record fish weighed on a certified scale, and having the species confirmed by a biologist with the Division of Wildlife, witnesses to the weighing, photos of the catch, and the fish must be kept frozen intact until it is certified as the state record.

Crowe snapped a few pictures, weighed and measured the fish, and then cleaned it. The fillets are in the freezer. So Mark Chuifo's 37.10-pound striper, caught in 1993 in West Branch Reservoir, still stands as Ohio's record striped bass, even though Crowe's fish was vastly larger. Those are the rules, and for the record, Crowe said he is fine with that.

"The experience itself was enough for me," said Crowe, who was fishing with lifelong friend Doug Albright at the time.

"I caught a fish that wouldn't fit in the net, we didn't have a scale on the boat that would handle it, we put a yardstick to it and the yardstick didn't get past its gills, and we had to ice it down in a recycling container because it wouldn't fit in the cooler — we knew it was an impressive fish but we had no idea what the requirements are for the official record. I understand there has to be some rules in place and I'm OK with that. I got to catch this monster fish and do it with one of my best friends, and you can't put a price on that."

The pair were fishing from an older pontoon boat on a recent Saturday morning that had been preceded by a couple of foul weather days. There was little action until Crowe cast his Rapala X-Rap over a sand bar near an island in the 5.5-square-mile flood control reservoir located in Guernsey and Noble counties. As Crowe got the lure close to the boat he saw a flash of silver and the big fish took off on an extended run that peeled half of the line off of Crowe's reel.

"I'm struggling to speak because I am so shocked by the power and strength of this fish, and Doug is steering the boat and trying to stay with the fish so it doesn't take all of the line, or break the line," Crowe said.

The huge striper surfaced three or four times in its effort to shake the hooks, it attempted a run near the no-wake-zone buoys where the anchors for those markers might have snapped the line, and eventually it tried to dive under the boat.

"It would take 40 to 50 yards of line at a time, and I would slowly get that back, but really I was just holding on for dear life," Crowe said. "Once we discovered our net was too small, we opened the side door of the pontoon boat and Doug had to reach under its gills and drag it into the boat."

After removing the hooks from the fish's mouth, Albright picked up the line and it snapped, having been frayed by the repeated runs the striper took, and its torpedo shots under the boat. "It was seconds away from getting loose when that line breaks, and it likely would have died due to exhaustion after that long fight," Crowe said.

He estimated the battle took an hour-and-a-half, but the two anglers were so engaged in the chase that they never checked the time. The fish weighed 43 pounds on a digital scale at a nearby bait shop. It measured 42 inches long, with an egg sack that likely weighed three pounds and a liver the size of a salad plate.

"It was like trying to lift an iron gate with chopsticks," Crowe said about that challenge of bringing the fish to the boat. "I could fit my elbow in its mouth."

Division of Wildlife fisheries biologist Matt Hangsleben said the state stopped stocking Seneca Lake with stripers in 2011, and since 2013 not a single striper had showed up in gill-net sampling done on the lake.

"I can't imagine there are too many left, but that is certainly the biggest one I have ever heard about," he said.

Crowe, who will retire this month and move to Nevada, said he plans to return to Ohio in the spring and fall to fish Seneca Lake with his friend, as they have done for many years. He has the pictures, and maybe a graphite reproduction of the big striper will hang on his wall someday, and along with the vivid memories of the experience, he is satisfied.

"I work in forensics, so I understand the rules that need to be followed, but that won't take away from the fact that we caught the biggest fish of that species in Ohio," he said. "The pictures and the story will live on forever, and I'm good with that."

(Note: Blade Outdoors Editor Matt Markey serves on Ohio's Record Fish Committee.)

First Published May 11, 2021, 10:30am