A record whitefish in Illinois was the last thing Christian Howe was expecting.
When you hear about whitefish, you don't think of Illinois, however, that's exactly where this record whitefish was caught. Christian Howe was fishing on the Calumet river near 95th Street, close to the Calumet Fisheries Smokehouse in Chicago. He had caught many whitefish from other states, but as luck would have it, this was his first one ever caught in Illinois.
"We started out at 87th for perch,'" Howe said in an interview. "We did OK there. There were a lot of small perch there. Moved to 89th. Then putzed our way up the river to the old spots."
As Howe was about to call it a day, the big fish hit his minnow while fishing for crappie. Immediately he thought it was a brown trout or a coho salmon, but as it turned it out, it was the biggest whitefish in Illinois history. Check out a photo of the fish here.
"So used to seeing bigger ones up north, I thought this would be a good dinner, then, `Wait a second,' and booked it down to Henry's, (a local bait shop)'' he said.
After being certified, Howe's record whitefish weighed in at 4.45 pounds. The previous record was 3.10 pounds, caught back in 2016.
It seems pretty clear that Howe is on the way to record books.
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