Montana Fish Report

Joshua Daniels was recently fishing on Lake Havasu with his fiancé, Sarah Harris, and had moved about 100 yards off the bank. They were looking for fish along structure and near drop-offs with their forward-facing sonar. Daniels noticed a large fish close to a creek mouth, holding on a flat near a sunken tree in 15 feet of water.

“It was a big sonar mark in deep water that I figured was a smallmouth bass,” explained Daniels in an interview with Outdoor Life. “I cast a micro jig with a small piece of earthworm attached to it with ultralight tackle. I let it sink to the bottom where the fish was holding, but nothing happened … then I twitched the 1/32-ounce chartreuse-colored Berkley ‘Atomic Tube’ lure once, and the fish took it.”

After a hard fight, Daniels landed his catch and saw it was a big redear sunfish. He keeps certified scales and a length measuring board in his boat and saw that the redear measured 16 inches long with an 18-inch girth, and was 4 pounds, 12 ounces.

Daniels released the redear and submitted the required paperwork to the Arizona Game and Fish Department to have it certified as a record in the “Colorado River Waters – Catch and Release” category. The record was approved by AZGFD fisheries staff on June 19.

Read the full Outdoor Life article.