Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Your personal best.

You know the drill......Pics or it didn't happen.

Whatever you fish for or whatever it is you caught.....what is the biggest fish y'all ever hauled in? Can go by weight or length, I really don't care. All of my waters are blown out from flooding and I wanna see some fish pics.

My best pike and lake trout.

37 1/2 inches on the trout
42 1/2 on the pike.

BM those are gorgeous; very nice!!

This aint my personal best..I just can't find a pic of the biggest one. This of course is freshwater .This one was 42" and18 lbs. My personal best in salt water was no doubt some kind of shark...no pics.

Steelhead on the Salmon River. Just shy of 16 lbs. The pic. makes it look bigger than it is, but I’ll take it.

My crowning achievement as far as fish was a 31.5", twelve pound Walleye. Sorry no pics. All I have is a polaroid of it.

I caught I think one 7 lb striper and a couple largemouth about 5 pounds. Dad and brother caught them up to and over 10 pounds( largemouth)

Not counting salt water the biggest I’ve never caught was a 164# tarpon down in Costa Rica. If I can find the picture ill have someone help me post it.

Osky

It was so big that if you look closely at the top of the gill plate the head was starting to tear and separate itself from the body when I tried to hold it by the gills.

Damn nice fish.

Dunno if I’ve seen one that big, just a hammer 👊🏻

Big bastard. They caught a 140 this year down in the river. New Missouri state record.

Freshwater would be a spoonbill I snagged about 25 years ago. Didn't keep it but probably in the 30 to 40 pound range. I was anchored in the river casting into the mouth of a ditch and jerking a big treble with a bass rod. I caught 10 or 12 in the 10 to 15 pound range. Then I hooked one that was like a truck. I had to freespool the reel and pull the anchor up. I chased him with the trolling motor. And it was at least a1/4 mile downstream before I could get him to the boat and unhook him. Not near like the one above.
That thing is a beast.

#51 Flathead from last spring would be my biggest cat on rod and reel.
My best King at a shade over 70
And the best Northern I ever got, it was 18.5 and I let the air service use my pic for their ad the next year.

Ky221: Oh it happened "baby"!
My best Rainbow Trout was caught Christmas morning 2,001 on Clark Canyon Reservoir through 20 inches of ice.
What a battle. I took it home and weighed it on my Deliar at 7 pounds 8 ounces!
No pictures of that one.
My best Salmon for the first 71 years of my life was a 25 pound King caught off of the mouth of the Columbia. Try as I might and I fished everywhere but I could NOT break the 25 pound mark!
All my friends and fishing partners had caught 45 pounders+ but I was stuck on 25 - caught lots of Salmon every year but just never a "Tyee" (fifty pounder)!
Finally a couple years back three friends and I chartered a liveaboard boat for a week and fished out of Kodiak, Alaska.
On the first day near Marmot Bay on Afognak Island I caught the fish of my dreams - a GIANT King Salmon.
It bottomed out a Shakespeare 55 pound fish scale with much Salmon still left on the deck!
We took measurements (length and girth) and the Alaska Fish and Game pamphlet later showed that Salmon to be right at 72 pounds!
Now I had to make an expensive decision there on the first day of a 7 day charter - head back to Kodiak and find a fish taxidermist or just clean the fish and keep it in one of the coolers on ice for transport home. The next day I cleaned it and decided to keep fishing - saving the long, and at the time, dangerous trip back to Kodiak and saving that hassle and expense.
Plus all my walls back home are filled with Mule Deer, Antelope, Whitetailed Deer, Blacktailed Deer and Elk. So no taxidermy done on it.
Turns out we caught several fish over 50 pounds that trip and lost one at the boat the the Captain was sure would go 80 pounds! We also caught several Halibut in the 20 to 40 pound range.
Among our King Salmon were two fish with "white flesh" - they tasted every bit as good as the orange fleshed Kings as we did a lot of eating while on the liveaboard.
I do have hard copy pictures of myself and the "72" pound King.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Best trout was the first one I ever caught on a flyrod (5-wt) 24" rainbow.

A bucket list fishing trip for me.

Holy smokes Ed, that line from the movie Jaws comes to mind about needing a bigger boat!
Mine was when six of us went up to Homer, AK. and I blistered my hand catching salmon about every third cast on the Kenai River. We talked it over and said that we can catch salmon back home in the Great Lakes, so lets try a 1/2 day charter out in the ocean. The first fish I hooked was a 93# halibut that turned out to be the biggest of the trip. Even the first mate wanted his picture taken with my fish because while halibut do get lots bigger, they never catch big ones on the half day charters. Needless to say we charter fished for halibut all that week and each flew home with a 50# box of vacuum packed frozen halibut fillets. Outstanding eating.

only been pike fishing once, headed back in a few weeks. The other is my daughters best, she thought it smelled bad.

That's a very nice and clean Muskie.

Like the Gheenoe too😎

Caught before cell phones and digital photography, so a 4x6 from Photo Hut is all I have.

33# Lake Ontario King salmon is my biggest fish ever.

Caught on the New River in Virginia. Use to be an awesome Small Mouth river and occasionally catch a Muskie. Now, guys who know what they are doing catch 3 a day and the smallmouth are harder to come by. I mean on a good trip you could catch 100 smallies. Some good ones. They say the Muskies don't eat the small mouth but I don't believe it.

I've caught a bunch of big fish but none any bigger than this one.

LOL

Lol they don't. At least not in a large part. Muskies 10-1 prefer soft rayed fish (suckers, carp etc). Been a ton of studies done on this subject. Where Muskies are shocked, then stomach contents flushed. I can't remember the percentages but when it comes to bass, bluegill, etc.....it's extremely low.

Ever notice that some of the best smallie and walleye lakes are also first class Muskie fisheries? Lake st Clair, lake of the woods, come to mind.

On striped marlin my best is ~20 minutes on 20# line, netting 4th place angler in L.A. Billfish tournament.

On salmon it was qualifying for membership in the Tyee Club with 32-1/2# on 16# line.

Spearfishing it was a 34-1/2" sheepshead.

Does this mean you fought the Marlin for 20 minutes before you broke him off or you boated him in 20 minutes? I’m genuinely curious as I have no experience with this type of fishing.

Maybe not quite the best but fish and fisherman were about a dead heat weight wise. We accidentally caught this one about 2 hours ago while trolling plugs for walleye/saugeye. 15lb Pline on a 6500 Abu dragging a size 7 Rapala.

Tag and release tournament--released the marlin after 20 minutes of battle getting him to the boat. Under tournament rules, when the swivel touches the rod tip, the time stops; this to allow sufficient time to release the fish safely and improve his chances of survival.

I would challenge that line of thinking. I guide from Minnesota to the northern limits of musky range in Canada for musky and can tell you they do not discriminate. They may have preferences but I have seen countless muskies attack smallmouth on the line from the Mississippi on north.
I have had many attack walleyes being reeled in as well. I know of many terrific smallie lakes in Ontario that have primarily Muskie, lake trout, and bass for game species and whitefish and Cisco for forage base where every client will have Musky hit bass on the line at some time during the day. It’s very common.
As they get larger in those lakes the trophy’s tend to move out deep and prey from below on the Cisco and whitefish schools. Trolling under those huge schools in open water produces wonderful musky and pike as well if they share the water.
Musky are eating machines period. We even have multiple instances i recent years of musky in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Canada attacking people with their feet hanging in the water while sitting on docks.

Osky

60 lb spoonbill and a 35 lb striper are my biggest of anything of note. Everything else is just run of the mill common sizes, not that those 2 are extremely big either.

Good stuff right there.

Dude got him an odd “best” this evening. Thought we had another flathead until he finally cranked this thing up beside the boat. Didn’t have a scale but I don’t see many bigger than this one around here.

Best trout[Linked Image]

And there is a perfectly logical reason for that. It's a "fish in distress". Doesn't matter what the species is, a bigger fish sees a fish "fighting on a line" it's going to trigger the predatory instinct. You can challenge that line of thinking or you can look up Muskie diets and stomach contents that are actually factual and evidence backed. They are seemingly a fresh study released every year. Hard rayed fish are a VERY small percent of the diet.

Muskies will
Also hammer other smaller Muskies when on the line, same with northern pike.....but they are not part of the general diet and not negatively impacting other game fish populations. Again. Check LSC, lake of the woods, eagle lake, etc etc etc etc the list goes on. If that were the case....you could not have both a world class bass lake and a world class Muskie lake working together.

Eating machines LOL! Muskies are SUPER LAZY fish. And they in fact do not eat everyday. A big Muskie might go 2-: days between feeds. If they were eating machines they would be easier to catch. Because they are a pretty stupid fish.

As far as smoking toes off the dock. It's funny to me that when bluegill do it....it's cute. When a Muskie does it, he's a ferocious eating machine. If a fish sees something moving in the water, and thinks he can eat it.....he's going to. Idc what the species is.

I've spent all of my adult life around these fish....nothing conjures up more "stories and false assumptions" than a Muskie. Start chasing the fish, and you'll soon lay a bunch of this to rest.

I hear the same thing from the State. But the small mouth, redeye and blue gill population is nothing like it was 20 years ago. A couple hour canoe trip would get you over 100 smallies and redeyes. I haven't caught a single redeye in years in the the New River.

Funny, buddy guides on new river and HAMMERS the Smallies and rock bass, and walleye, and Muskies. 😂😂

I will believe my own eyes and experience, and also studies for sure, I do not claim to be an expert.
All of your adult life is terrific. I have worked on and guided on water for the mentioned fish since the summer of 69 when I started as a dock boy in the northern fly in camps of Ontario and Manitoba. While I am not the expert you are I will tap back on 50 plus years of experience.

You bring up examples of lakes like LOW. That is a massive lake where there are not enough musky overall to cause big changes. I’ve fished most of the water from Angle Inlet up to Kenora particularly ( a ton of it anyway ) and plenty of musky are there but not nearly enough to influence any fish population. Smaller waters they can and do. The same for the Mississippi down north of Minneapolis, plenty of room for all.
Your example of other species of fish nipping at toes seems to make my point.
Muskies are no more lazy than any other fish for the most part. Sunnies bite, and they don’t. Crappies the same, walleyes…etc. I have found changing weather conditions affect musky more than anything, full belly or not. A very skittish fish to be sure but that mode can be mitigated a bit by stained water, cautious fishing methods, long lining etc.

I’ve grown a bit tired of muskies other than the fantastic table fare they are. The vast majority of my clients now prefer fishing trophy pike versus musky and I enjoy it as well so maybe I’m too far behind the current musky wisdom these days. That’s fine.


A lifetime on the water and someone is telling me to start chasing fish. Thank you for that advice.

Osky

Uncle Ben with a couple of nice Muskie's. I've never caught a muskie myself, but I've never fished in the fall for them.

Left is very chunky. Beauty.
From what area?

Osky

Caught and released a 53" Kenai river King on my boat a couple seasons ago. No pic but I have go pro video of it in the net with me putting the tape on him. I couldn't even get my hand around the wrist to pull him out of the net. I still bring it up and watch it from time to time just to get the chills again.

Not the biggest by weight, but my favorite fish of all time. 32" 16#4oz carp on an ultralight with 6# mono 5 years ago when I was fishing for spring suckers. Took me about 20 minutes to get it in the boat without popping the line. Still consider it my "best" catch to date.

I also had my then 3 year old in the boat with me, which made things extra interesting with him dancing around me trying to "help" 😏

Ah, the classic I'm older than you and therefore know everything. Fwiw I fish water so small you can't even begin to imagine. Muskies have been there for eons, as have the bass. And the fishing is great .

Lol.I'll not bother wasting anymore time for you or myself. No matter how bright the light, some just don't seem to see it. Take care.

What part of the New? I still catch a few nice ones in the Radford Va area but the numbers just aren't there like they use to be

I don't fish the New so
I can't tell you the town he fishes exactly but he lives in Beckley WV. So it's the WV side of the new.

Best carp 28" on a 5-weight flyrod.

That looks like fun. I’m not a fly rod guy but more and more people ask me about that type of fishing in Minnesota, becoming very popular. Knowing how big carp get that has to be a handful.

Osky

Somewhere between Grindstone and Wolf island on the Saint Lawrence river.

Carp were never real high on my hit list, but I did hear Al Lindner say that if guys aren't fishing for carp, that they are missing out on an opportunity for a strong fighting fish.

Carp are a blast... you hook into a good sized one, it's like having a Buick on the other end of the line. They generally don't do a lot of crazy acrobatics, but they pull like a freight train.

I shot a citation carp in the back of the head. You would have thought it would have died. Wrong. It pulled the canoe almost back to the boat launch. Damn that was fun. Don't remember why I quit bow fishing

My best rainbow, caught two weeks ago on the lake next to my house. 7.5lbs

Best northern, 43"

Best lake trout...

Best cutthroat... 11lb 6oz

Irf--nice catch.

Thanks Pal...
My biggest calico from your neighborhood

Calico bass is delicious.

My two best chinook, actually caught them back to back.

Ocean out of Newport, Oregon.

No long-arming, either.





P

24 pound rainbow form Jurassic Lake

Bugle mouth bass!

They be spawning in Canyon Ferry, time to get after them with a bow…

Yeah, we did that a few years ago...racked up over 100 in one evening...