COLUMN: Outdoor Type: Record-breaking bass, part II

Hope you caught my last column about the world and Indiana largemouth bass records. If you didn’t, here’s a recap.

The overall mark is now shared by two anglers, one American and one Japanese. George Perry caught a 22-pound, 4-ounce bass in 1932 out of Montgomery Lake, Georgia. In 2009 Manabu Kurita caught his huge largemouth out of Lake Biwa in Japan, tying Perry’s record.

In 1968 in Indiana, Curt Reynolds pulled an 11-11 out of a lake near Ferdinand. It held the state mark until 1990, when Warren Alexander tied on a spinnerbait and made a cast into a Perry County pond. He was rewarded with a 12-6 lunker, but he was not the title holder long.

In 1991, 31-year-old Jenifer Stein Schultz and family owned a cabin on the 120-acre Seven Springs Lake, near Elizabeth in southeastern Indiana. She, her husband Mike, and their two small boys were enjoying a Memorial Day weekend at the lake house. Her spouse, an avid bass fisherman, had gotten up early to fish that morning but returned with nothing. He had previously caught an eight-pounder out of their lake, but he thought bigger ones were possible. Jenifer enjoyed fishing too; her best bass was a four-pound smallmouth.

While the boys were swimming, Jenifer walked down to the bank to try her luck while her husband relaxed on the porch. She tied on a lure Mike had found and given to her, a silver and black surface lure called a Pop-R. She gave it a fling down the bank, twitched it a couple of times, “and then it just disappeared,” she said. This point marked my last column’s end.

Now—the rest of the story:

“Oh, this is a good one,” she thought as she set the hook, but since the fish was not surfacing, she thought it must be a catfish. The lunker stayed out about 25 feet from the bank, “but then that fish started moving toward deep water. I told myself to just keep the line taut, no slack. It took out so much line I thought I might run out! Then it started coming back and rolled. I yelled to my husband Mike relaxing on the porch that this was the biggest fish in the lake! He thought it might be that ten-pounder he always thought about. He ran to the garage and grabbed the net. But I still couldn’t stop the fish from going out. I had checked my drag before fishing and knew it was right, but what happens if all my line goes out?”

Finally, the bass of a lifetime started coming back toward the bank, swimming slowly and deliberately. It was so old and heavy that Mike was able to scoop her up.

“We were both stunned,” Jenifer said. “He hollered that was the ten-pounder! I said it was bigger, but he’s good at eyeing a fish and telling the weight. We grabbed a cooler to try to keep the fish comfortable and went to a little grocery near us in Elizabeth. They didn’t have a registered scale though. Some fellows there told us to try Smitty’s, a bait shop outside of Corydon. One guy went home to get a larger container, a big plastic tub. We put more water in there so the fish was comfortable. People were stopping to look at this fish. Guys were asking who caught it. ‘She did,’ someone said.

“The guy with the tub volunteered his van to transport the fish, so we just followed him down the backroads towards Corydon. Someone called the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) guys, and two of them met us at the bait shop. But then we had to go to an IGA to get a proper scale. I still remember walking through the store back to the meat department dripping water all over the place. But they were very understanding. Everything was properly documented. The bass weighed 14 pounds, 12 ounces.”

Later after examination the DNR told Jenifer that this northern strain fish had already spawned and didn’t really have anything unusual in its stomach. It was about ten years old. They had no explanation for how a fish this far north could grow to this size.

“If Bass Pro would’ve had their big fish tank available at the time, I would’ve loved to see her swimming around in there. As it was, we had it mounted by Butch Stoops, an expert from the West Lafayette area town of Mulberry. It’s a beautiful piece of work. I didn’t want a wall mount, so the fish is encased in something like an aquarium, with the Pop-R situated above her. She looks ready to attack it.”

As Jenifer told this story it was clear that the state’s biggest bass catch 35 years ago is etched in her mind. Will this mark ever be broken? It’s highly doubtful. This incredible fish and Jenifer’s name will most likely stay in the Indiana record books forever. But you know what they say about records.