The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Angler hooks state record trout
Walleye tourney leads to ‘monster fish’
Lots of Ohio anglers have fish tales about the one that got away.
Lorain fisherman James Beres, 47, has a fish tale about the one that got caught and became a state record.
On Dec. 1, Beres hooked the largest lake trout ever recorded in Ohio waters as he and his brother, Mike, were fishing for walleye off Lorain.
The fish weighed 26.63 pounds, surpassing the former record holder lake trout that weighed 20.4 pounds.
“It’s just a neat thing for the area,” Beres said. “A lot of people are asking questions about it. It’s cool.”
The Outdoor Writers of Ohio State Record Fish Committee and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources announced the new record Dec. 19.
The fish was 38 inches long and 25.5 inches in girth.
In Ohio, fish records are determined by weight, according to the Outdoor Writers of Ohio State Record Fish Committee.
Beres, who works at the Ford Motor Co. Ohio Assembly Plant in Avon Lake, recounted the tale of the titanic trout.
He and his brother were fishing five miles north of Lorain’s Beaver Park Marina.
“It was actually a beautiful day that day,” Beres said.
The brothers were angling for a winner for the Walleye Fall Brawl tournament, hosted by Erie Outfitters of Sheffield Lake.
The contest runs from Oct. 20 to Dec. 3.
At the end of November, the brothers spent 70 hours a week fishing and hoping for part of the purse.
Prizes ranged from $6,000 for fifth place to an $80,000 fishing boat for the largest walleye.
“All it takes is one fish and we were in it,” Beres said.
Beres had a JT Custom Crank Bait trolling off his 23foot Tidewater boat when the fish took the lure.
Judging from the feel at the other end of the line, Beres said they knew it was a “monster fish.”
The gray flash underwater made it look like a huge walleye, but in the boat, they could tell its mouth was not quite right for that species, Beres said.
They took a picture of the fish and sent it out in hopes of identifying the creature.
The brothers rode in to Lorain’s Hot Waters Municipal Boat Ramp and learned it was a lake trout.
Based on some quick computer searches, Beres said they believed the Ohio record for lake trout was 28 pounds. They put the trout back in their cooler, then went out for more fishing.
But Beres said he had a nagging feeling to double check the record weight, so he called Erie Outfitters to confirm it.
Meanwhile, word began to spread about the giant fish.
“Social media is social media,” Beres said.
The brothers came in off the lake and headed to Erie Outfitters, where other anglers and state fish experts had gathered with Beres’ wife, Nikki, and their sons, Gavin, 8, and Braddyn, 5.
“We opened the cooler and it was like a rock star,” Beres said. “People were high-fiving and screaming, and for a fish.”
There is a splash of mystery to the record catch.
Lake trout live in Lake Erie, but generally in the Eastern Basin, Beres said, so they are seldom caught off Lorain. The Eastern Basin, in the area of Pennsylvania and New York, is the deepest part of Lake Erie.
“What the heck was that fish doing at 25 feet and feeding to hit a crankbait like that?” he asked.
Its girth was exceptionally wide.
“It’s been feeding well in the lake,” Beres said.
State experts could tell from its fins that it was a raised fish, not a wild one.
It had a tag in its head that could reveal more details about its age and what state it came from, Beres said.
From May through the fall, walleye fishing off Lorain is some of the best fishing in the state as the schools of fish migrate back and forth across Lake Erie, Beres said.
The walleye hatch of 2000 has grown into “trophy size fish,” he said, and he predicted Ohio’s walleye record will fall in the next three years when someone hooks one of those.
Beres will have the fish mounted.
Incidentally, the 26-pound trout was more than 10 pounds heavier than the 14.97-pound walleye that won the Fall Brawl, but he and his brother did not place in the top five.
“I’d take this for a consolation prize any day of the week,” Beres said about the state record. “If it wasn’t for that tournament, I’d have never caught that fish, not in a million years, because I wouldn’t have been out there.