John Hageman reports on the biggest Great Lakes smallmouth ever was taken in the Bass Islands.

In early November, word began circulating on social media of a massive 10-pound-plus smallmouth bass that was caught on Lake Erie. This time, the messages turned out to be true.

Gregg Gallagher of Fremont, Ohio and his son/primary fishing partner Grant are both schoolteachers. They unexpectedly had the day off when their respective schools closed for the day due to heavy fog.

Grant was acting as the guide that morning as they began fishing near Pelee Island, about 15 miles north of Port Clinton, Ohio, widely known as “The Walleye Capital of the World.”

The younger Gallagher became a bass specialist while fishing on the Adrian (Michigan) College fishing team and is well-coached on where to find likely bass-holding locations. Grant had already landed a few nice bass before Gregg matched the lure that his son was using. His bait was inhaled before ever reaching the bottom. When he set the hook, he assumed that because of the weight that he felt on his line, it was a freshwater drum (aka sheepshead). He realized his mistake when the fish raced to the surface to leap, as bass are inclined to do.

According to Gallagher, “Countless time Grant spent scouting, graphing and working on fine-tuning our smallmouth techniques all paid off when we located a unique and likely unfished spot. With an abundance of baitfish located and a unique bottom content found via long days behind the graphs, we dropped down our forward facing sonar and were able to individually target these pelagic smallmouth.

“On what turned out to be the most memorable cast of my life, my bait got hit before it even hit the bottom, and my rod quickly doubled over. I honestly thought I had hooked into a sheepshead and not a smallmouth. We quickly learned we had just caught the smallmouth of a lifetime.”

After landing the fish, they knew it was something special, even before their scale showed it to be well in excess of 9 pounds. A nearby boat had a more accurate scale which displayed 10.16 pounds.

After hastily making the trip back to the public boat ramps at Catawba Island State Park where they had launched that morning, they were met by the Ohio Division of Wildlife Lake Erie Fisheries Administrator Travis Hartman.

After formally confirming the identification as a smallmouth bass, he suggested taking it to the Port Clinton Fish Company to have it weighed on their certified scale. There, it was officially registered at 10.15 pounds.

Since it was caught in Ontario waters, Gallagher will hold the new record there, but Ohio’s state record will remain the 9.5-pound fish caught near Green Island in 1993. Gallagher’s fish is said to be the heaviest smallmouth bass ever caught in the Great Lakes.

The world record smallmouth bass was caught in Dale Hollow Reservoir, Tennessee in 1955, weighing 11 pounds, 15 ounces.

Gallagher will donate the original to allow it to be displayed at the Ohio Division of Wildlife Sandusky Fisheries Research Unit, while having a replica mount made for his home. Fisheries biologists there plan to accurately age the fish, determine its sex and collect DNA samples to harvest as much scientific information as possible in the name of prudent science.

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