Wisconsin angler Vairin Meesouk was casting from shore on Madison’s Lake Mendota the morning of April 22 when he hooked a heavy panfish. Soon he had a good-size striped fish on the bank.
“He’d already caught a smaller white bass, and knew the much larger fish was noticeably different,” Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources senior biologist Tim Parks tells Outdoor Life. “He got ahold of our local DNR office after he had it weighed on certified scales at a meat market and realized it might be a record fish.”
Parks met with Meesouk that morning and verified it was indeed a yellow bass, and a huge one. He confirmed the certified weight of the bass as recorded at the market, and the fish is now a pending state record.
“The biggest thing was making sure it was a yellow bass, and not a white bass,” Parks says of the two related species, noting that yellow bass are much rarer than white bass. “I did the anal fin spiny ray counts on the fish, and it was indeed a yellow bass.”
Meesouk’s fish weighed 2 pounds 13.8 ounces, and measured 16 ½ inches in length. It should top the current Wisconsin record, which weighed 2 pounds 12 ounces and was caught through the ice on Lake Waubesa in February 2013. By comparison, the IGFA all-tackle record for the species weighed 4 pounds, 5 ounces, and was caught in Indiana.
Outdoor Life was unable to reach Meesouk for comment about the record catch. And Parks says “he was a little shy” about telling him where exactly he caught the bass and what he was using. He says it was likely a small artificial lure, since Meesouk was fishing from shore.
“He did catch it from a place not well known for yellow bass, but anglers work that area trying for white bass,” Parks explains. “We see yellow bass so infrequently that we get most of our information about them from in-state anglers.”
Lake Mentona is one of four main lakes in the Madison area that are connected by the Yahara River. Waubesa is part of that chain as well, so it’s not unusual that Meesouk’s record bass came from the same system.
Parks filled out the required paperwork for Meesouk’s fish and submitted it to the DNR for verification. Parks believes the state record will be approved. He noted that while Meesouk’s yellow bass was heavier than the old record, it was also shorter than the Waubesa fish.
“It may have been full of roe, because they spawn in spring, and conditions for that are ideal now,” Parks says. “I don’t know if Meesouk filleted the fish and ate it, or if he will have a mount made.”
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