Fishing period opened on April 6 on Massachusetts’ sprawling, 4,400-acre Wachusett Reservoir, and the condition lake trout history was broken twice within the week. Most lately, new pending record holder John Stamas caught and launched a 39-inch laker on April 9. The fish weighed in at roughly 20 lbs on a hand scale.
Stamas and buddy Michael Xu began fishing at dawn. By mid-day, all they had to demonstrate for their efforts was a compact lake trout and a 3-pound smallmouth.
“I’m truly a smallmouth bass angler, and we get some good kinds from Wachusett weighing practically 5 kilos,” Stamas informed Outdoor Lifetime. “We were being fishing major football-formed jigs for bass in an location exactly where some major lakers have been caught. Which is when I bought a powerful mid-working day strike on a 3-quarter-ounce, blue-and-black football jig with a craw plastic trailer. At first, I assumed it was a big smallmouth, but it was a lunker laker.”
Stamas employed bait-casting deal with with 12-pound examination fluorocarbon line, as the lake is ultra-obvious and deep. Because he makes use of a sturdy reel drag, the combat was a rapidly and furious brawl.
“I want a rapid fight with fish I launch, so I use a strong drag and horse them in,” suggests Stamas, 30, from Leominster, Massachusetts. “My precedence is to land them quickly, in a moment, measure and release them unharmed.
“The laker didn’t pull line against my drag. But it was rolling at the floor and I imagined the line would split or the jig would pull out.”
Thankfully, his deal with held, and he muscled the trout on to shore in just 60 seconds. He calculated and unveiled it swiftly, but not before using photographs to submit to the condition for document reasons. The 39-inch trout had a 19-inch girth, and weighed about 20 kilos on a moveable scale.
“We couldn’t get an accurate body weight of the fish for the reason that it was wiggling a good deal,” says Stamas. “The scale would browse 19 kilos, then 21 lbs. The figures have been leaping all all-around. We figured 20 lbs . was about proper. Then we launched it about just one minute just after landing it.”
Xu videoed the complete fish battle and posted it to his YouTube channel.
Stamas is a standard when it arrives to publishing his catches to the Massachusetts Freshwater Sportfishing Awards Program, which garners award pins for anglers if they qualify. Stamas has been awarded numerous pins by the state for his massive Wachusett Reservoir smallmouths, together with a special gold pin for catching and releasing the longest Massachusetts smallmouth in 2022. He approximated that 22.5-inch smallmouth bass to weigh just below 5 kilos.
If Stamas’ 39-inch lake trout retains up as the largest caught in Massachusetts in 2024, he’ll receive a exclusive gold pin for the fish. Odds are good the fish will get that honor, considering the fact that the point out history lake trout is presently a 33-inch, 25-pound 7-ounce fish that William Roy caught from the Quabbin Reservoir in 2016.
Stamas has fished the Wachusett Reservoir tirelessly in excess of the earlier 4 several years following going to the place. Anglers can only fish “Chu” from the shoreline. Boats aren’t permitted considering that the reservoir serves the Boston place.
“We walk a lengthy way to get to the finest fishing spots on Chu,” Stamas clarifies. “It’s almost nothing to wander a few to five miles about the lake in a working day of fishing.”
The Wachusett Reservoir has a 37-mile shoreline. The reservoir was impounded in 1905, and has depths of in excess of 100 feet of air-clear drinking water.
Stamas will get a reproduction mount of the 39-inch laker, and he presently is familiar with in which he’ll exhibit it.
“I’ve obtained a location on the wall in my place of work around a 45-inch barracuda I caught off Miami,” he suggests. “I think they’ll glance fairly fantastic jointly on that wall.”
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