Doubling his pleasure
Northwest Side teen lands two record fish at Montrose Harbor
Ken Maggiore had the greatest day of fishing in the history of the Chicago lakefront Wednesday.
He caught the Illinois- record whitefish and burbot in a half- hour span at Montrose Harbor after hours of simply being the net man.
‘‘ I am still in shock,’’ Maggiore, 19, said after having both fish weighed on the certified scale at Henry’s Sports and Bait Shop in Bridgeport. ‘‘ All my buddies are calling me who left early.’’
It was the third Illinois- record whitefish in 33 days caught in Chicago.
Maggiore’s whitefish ( 27 ¾ inches long, 14 ½ - inch girth) weighed 7.5 pounds. His burbot ( 32 inches long, 17 ½ - inch girth) weighed 9.3 pounds. Both were caught on shrimp fished on the bottom.
The day began at 3: 30 a. m. for Maggiore. The Northwest Sider is a hard- core fisherman who began working at FishTech in Morton Grove while attending Taft High School, which he led to state in bass fishing. He headed to his buddy Tommy Krysciak’s house so they could be by the ‘‘ Seven Trees’’ at Montrose Harbor before dawn.
‘‘ We were shooting powerlines out,’’ Maggiore said. ‘‘ With the northeast winds, it was kind of tricky. I got the bottom rods out when the sun came. My buddies got coho right away. I got none. I sat back and watched everybody else catch fish and netted them.’’ That changed about 11 a. m. ‘‘ The big rod decided to go off, [ so] I fed a little bit of line, then set the hook,’’ Maggiore said. ‘‘ I thought it was a laker. Saw a little yellow. It was a big burbot. The scale read a little over 9 pounds. But it’s an analog, so I was nervous.’’
‘‘ Once we got it to the surface, I said, ‘ That’s a burbot,’ ’’ Krysciak said. ‘‘ Everybody was asking, ‘ What [ descriptive term] is a burbot?’ I said, ‘ You’re taking that thing to Henry’s. That’s a state record.’ ’’ Capt. Tim Wojnicz caught Illinois’ inaugural burbot record ( 8 pounds, 13.6 ounces) on April 27, 2012, off Waukegan.
But Maggiore went back to fishing.
‘‘ My rod got these little taps, kinda like the whitefish bite,’’ Maggiore said. ‘‘ Next thing you know, I pull up a big silver fish, thought maybe a steelhead. But it was a big whitefish, and we were in awe. It was a little over 8 pounds. When I put it on the stringer, I nicked the gill, and that made me nervous.’’
Buddy Nick Pellikan helped hold Krysciak and Maggiore on the icy shore during the netting of both fish.
‘‘ I work at Fortune Fish & Gourmet,’’ Krysciak said. ‘‘ I see whitefish come out of Lake Superior. I have not seen any this big. That is the damn truth. He has something good here. Every day I see giants, but this tops them.’’
Maggiore knew the Illinois whitefish record — 6.55 pounds — had been set by Vincent Chan just five days earlier.
After Maggiore had landed the two records, he caught a couple of coho. At 2 p. m., he finally headed to Henry’s to weigh the whitefish and burbot to much ado.
Fisheries biologist Steve Robillard verified both fish Thursday. The records will be official as soon as all the paperwork is signed off on.
I’ve done this for 20 years, and Maggiore’s story leaves me at a loss for words. Awestruck? Dumbfounded? Stunned?