FISHING RECORDS HAVE fallen all around the state this summer, including a mammoth largemouth bass caught earlier this month on Snohomish County’s Lake Bosworth.
Bill Evans of Bothell caught the monster bass Aug. 8 while fishing with a Strike King 5-inch Shim-E-Stick, wacky-rigged on a 1/0 hook.
It weighed 12.53 pounds and measured 23-inches long with a girth of 22.5 inches.
The big bass bested the previous recordholder, an 11.57 pounder caught by Carl Pruitt in 1977 at Banks Lake in Eastern Washington.
Lake Bosworth is similar to Lake Sutherland in that it has numerous lakefront homes with docks ringing its edges.
Evans was casting underneath one such dock when he felt the tug.
“As soon as I set the hook, I knew it had to be a big one because the bottom pulled hard and it just wouldn’t quit,” Evans told the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“When she finally tried to jump, she could only get her head out of the water.”
Evans learned how big a fish he had on when he brought the fish to the boat.
“She just kept getting heavier and heavier,” he said.
“I put her in the livewell, but she didn’t even fit — her tail stuck out.”
Evans is a seasoned bass angler with nearly 40 years of experience. He winters in Florida where he spends much of his time targeting bass.
He moved to Washington a few years ago, and just started bass fishing in the state this summer. Evans has fished several lakes closer to Bothell, but Aug. 8 was his first time fishing at Lake Bosworth.
Evans told Northwest Sportsman he tried his best to keep the fish alive, running his livewell all night and adding ice to the water to cool the fish, but it was too much stress.
The contrarian weighs in
At least one person is skeptical about exactly where this bass was landed.
Quilcene’s Ward Norden, a former fisheries biologist and owner of Snapper Tackle Company, used to live in the area and would fish Lake Bosworth for bass. He’s not so sure Lake Bosworth is capable of supporting such a behemoth.
“Bosworth has a weak food chain for a bass to get that size,” Norden said.
“I will bet he got it at one of the others, one or two in particular just over the hill where I caught several in the high 9’s (pounds) and saw bigger.”
Norden said he entered into a less-than-truthful largemouth pact years ago.
“Many years ago, one of my fishing partners caught a 10-pound largemouth while in my boat and we agreed to claim it was caught in a very popular lake about 5 miles away in south King County since we knew the lake we were on could not take the pressure.
Warden left hope for bass anglers in this neck of the woods.
“Do I think there his a bass like that in a North Olympic Peninsula lake?” Warden said.
“You betcha.”
Other record setters caught in state waters were of a less impressive size.
Dave Bender of Paterson caught 0.58-pound prickly sculpin out of the Columbia River, besting the previous mark of 0.45 pounds.
Seattle’s Juan Valero brought in a 0.80-pound Pacific staghorn sculpin off Point No Point, a 0.04 increase.
Both of those records had been set in 2014.
The last of the record setters would please former Peninsula Daily News sports reporter Matt Schubert, who enjoyed the quest for striped surfperch off of the beach at Kalaloch.
Woodinville’s Chris Otte caught the new record striped surfperch, a 2.27 specimen, off the jetty at Westport.
The former record was a 2.07-pounder caught in June 1980 in Quartermaster Harbor off Vashon Island by Chris Urban.
Wecker speaks tonight
State Department of Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Miranda Wecker will speak to the Puget Sound Anglers’ North Olympic Peninsula Chapter tonight in Sequim.
Wecker will talk about Fish and Wildlife’s Wild Future initiative, including proposed license fee changes; offer a review on the status of the recreational halibut fishery and discuss the Skokomish River fishing closure.
There will be time for anglers to ask questions.
The meeting will be held at Trinity United Methodist Church, 100 S. Blake Ave. in Sequim, with a social half-hour starting at 6:30 p.m.
Wecker will speak when the meeting begins at 7 p.m., and a business meeting will follow.
Trail guide updating
Trail checking and updating are underway for the fourth edition of Robert L. Wood’s seminal guidebook, Olympic Mountains Trail Guide.
The review and updates for this new edition are being coordinated by the Peninsula Wilderness Club (PWC), located on the Kitsap Peninsula.
A regional classic and considered by many to be the bible of backcountry hiking in Olympic National park, Olympic Mountains Trail Guide was originally published in 1984, while the most recent edition came out in 2000.
“We have several teams making trail updates now, and we are actively looking for additional volunteers to assist,” said Steve Osborn, president of Peninsula Wilderness Club.
The Olympic Mountains Trail Guide features more than 400 pages and details more than 170 individual trails.
But it’s been 16 years since the most recent revisions.
And with the Elwha dam removal project and nearly 15 years of natural changes to the environment — including road and trail washouts, avalanches and rock slides, abandoned trails, and improved ones — it’s “definitely time for a complete revision,” said project editor Bill Hoke.
“We are starting from scratch to make the fourth edition as up to date as possible.”
To volunteer with the project, email Osburn at steven_osburn@hotmail.com, or phone Hoke at 360-271-9448 or email hoke@hokeconsulting.com.
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Sports reporter/columnist Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
