All that Tim Spurgeon wanted to do last Saturday evening was kick back with a fishing buddy and enjoy an easy evening's angling down on the Maumee River.
He didn't think he would come out with a potential state record white bass.
But the fish that Spurgeon landed, 22 1/2-inches long and weighing a certified 4 pounds, 10 ounces, could be just that.
The current white bass record is 4 pounds, 21 inches.
It still must be confirmed by Ohio Division of Wildlife biologists, who are expected to check the fish today, and then be officially certified in cooperation with the Outdoor Writers of Ohio, the official record-keepers in the state.
The only fly in the ointment is that the fish could be a hybrid - a cross between a striped bass and a white bass, which sometimes is called a wiper.
An accidental release of wipers occurred in 1990 at the private Seneca Lake in Williams County, where the lake association stocked 430 four to seven-inch hybrids.
Those fish escaped into the Maumee watershed.
The odd wipers started turning up in the river annually thereafter, though few if any have been verified in the last few years and presumably most would be a good bit larger than four to five pounds by now. Wipers reported in 2000 weighed 5 to 7 pounds then. The state record for the hybrid is 31 inches, 17.68 pounds from Deer Creek Lake in 2001.
Spurgeon, 36, of Napoleon, said he and his buddy, Kevin Carpenter, of Liberty Center, were fishing below Grand Rapids Dam about 6 p.m. Saturday.
He said there were quite a few other fishermen in the area as well.
He was utilizing ultralight spinning tackle, with shiner minnows under a bobber. The pair caught 20 or 25 white bass "just for fun," and were releasing them.
"Then this one took me under. I thought I had a walleye on there at first. When I saw it I thought, 'holey moley!' "
The angler had no stringer or landing net so he lipped the fish and took it ashore, sure he had something worth checking into.
"I've been catching them for 25 years," said Spurgeon about white bass.
But he went back this week and caught some more. "I wanted to look at them again, just to be sure, and they look just like the big one."
Along the way last Saturday, Spurgeon called a buddy, who looked up the OWO record certification process on the Internet. (The OWO Web site, www.outdoorwritersofohio.org, has the details).
After icing down the fish, Spurgeon took it to the Mohring carryout in Napoleon, where it was weighed on a certified scales.
That is one of the important steps to certifying a state record, which the angler said he intends to pursue, assuming biologists give it the white bass seal of approval today at Wildlife District 2 headquarters in Findlay.
In any event, Spurgeon has had fun with the big bass. "I grew up on the river. I've been fishing since I was a snotty little kid. You never know what you're going to get."
Speaking of which, Chris Martin, of River Lures in Grand Rapids, who initially checked the fish and photographed it, said that white bass action remains good and that catfishing has taken off. "They're starting to pull flatheads," he said.
Larry Smith at River Lures, checked a 32-pound flathead taken by Dave Stevenson, of Lima.
He also was fishing below the dam, using nightcrawlers and took 70 cats, most of them channel cats in the five to eight-pound range.
Martin also said some anglers have been picking up both largemouth bass and smallmouth bass on minnows.
But both he and Larry Goedde, fish management supervisor for Wildlife District 2, remind anglers that all largemouth and smallmouth in the Maumee below the dam must be released immediately during the closed season, which runs through June 29. The same applies to the Sandusky River below the Ballville Dam at Fremont and the Portage River below the Elmore Dam, and in Lake Erie.
Goedde thinks the white bass action should last into early June on the rivers.
Elsewhere, he said that sauger and crappie action was decent at Pleasant Hills Reservoir near Mansfield, and bluegill and largemouth bass action was excellent at the state's popular Lake La Su An chain of lakes in Williams County.
Call La Su An check-station Monday and Thursday mornings to make reservations, 419-636-6189, or call District 2 for other details, 419-424-5000.
Bluegills, he said, are just coming onto the beds. "It is a little bit late, like other things, this year."
Other possibilities, Goedde said, are at McKarns Lake in Williams County for crappie and rainbow trout, and Oxbow Lake in Defiance County for largemouth.
On western Lake Erie, walleye action remains good from Maumee Bay to the islands.
The Toledo Harbor Light and on out the Toledo Ship Channel and east to West Sister Island remains an area of concentration, said Rick Ferguson at Al Szuch Live Bait in Jerusalem Township. Boat anglers are using hybrid mayfly rigs such as Weapons or are dragging worm-harnesses on bottom-bouncers when drifting, or they are trolling with Jet Divers and spoons.
Farther east, walleye are being taken just off the west side of Catawba Island peninsula, just south of Catawba Island State Park, and southwest of Starve Island Reef, according to Rickard's Bait there.
Weapons and harnesses were the ticket there as well, though trollers were doing well between Niagara Reef and D-Can of the Camp Perry Firing Range, the shop said.
The docks and ramps at Mary Jane Thurston State Park, situated along State Rt. 65 just west of Grand Rapids on the Maumee River, will be closed until June 15 to allow for a $765,000 improvement project.
Bob Bowman, park manager, said the marina was built in 1976 and "nothing has been done since then."
The project will dredge out silt and repair and lengthen docks and ramps to accommodate larger craft. They were built for boats of 15 to 16 feet, Bowman said. "Now the average boat we see is 20 feet or better."
The work is being funded by $300,000 in state capital improvements money, $405,000 from the Waterway Fund of the Ohio Division of Watercraft, and $60,000 from the Ohio Division of Wildlife.
First Published May 25, 2007, 11:23 a.m.
