Will Lutes, of Akron, got a call last month from a good buddy. His pal had just learned about a relatively small and mostly unknown lake south of Akron that was rated the top bass and bluegill spot in Ohio by the state fisheries department.
“My fishing buddy, Jacob Middleton, wanted to know if I’d ever been on Nimisila,” Lutes told Wired2fish. “I told him I had, and it was a nice spot where I’d caught some 2-pounders.”
Middleton was hot to fish the lake and towed his Skeeter bass boat to the lake where he met Lutes at 8 a.m. on a very cold and overcast April Saturday morning.
“We were launching the boat I saw sleet pelting the Skeeter deck,” said Lutes, a corporate finance manager. “The weather was awful, really bone chilling at just over 40 degrees. The water temperature was 38 degrees.
“I wasn’t excited about our chances of catching bass. I was wishing I was back at home on my couch watching the Masters golf tournament with my fiance Carla instead of chasing bass on Nimisila.”
But the fishing turned out to be remarkably good, said Lutes. The pair of seasoned anglers – who’d been fishing partners on the Ohio State University bass fishing team – had homed in on catching bass with floating-diving crankbaits.
“I guess the fish were in pre-spawn and we found them in a rocky area with a drop off going down to about 20 feet,” said Lutes. “Our boat was in 8-feet of water, casting to the deeper water, and bumping crankbaits up the slope, where bass were taking our plugs.”
The anglers moved around a bit that morning to different parts of the small natural lake. Early in the morning they “spotted” a large fish on their LiveScope, and cast to it. But it didn’t hit.
“I figured it was a catfish because it didn’t strike our plugs,” Lutes explained. “We fished some other spots and caught five bass that would have weighed about 10 pounds total. Then we went back about 11 a.m. to the drop-off where we’d seen the big fish on the LiveScope.”
Lutes made a cast with a gold, discontinued Lucky Craft crankbait, and as the lure bumped along bottom in 14-feet of water it hung up on a rock, Lutes explained. He gave the lure slack so it would float off the rock, then looked away for a second.
“When I turned back, my 15-pound test fluorocarbon line was heading out to deeper water. So I tightened up on my Shimano baitcasting reel, and the fish was stronger than any freshwater fish I’d felt before.”
The fish fought deep and strong like a “German U-Boat,” said Lutes. The fish never shook its head nor jumped. Lutes figured it was a big, deep-digging catfish – until he got it close to their boat after a 3-minute fight.
“It flashed white near the Skeeter, and in the lake’s clear water I knew then it was a bass,” he stated. “I yelled for Jacob to get the net, and he just nonchalantly handed it to me. He thought it was just another bass like we’d been catching that morning.”
Lutes grabbed the net and scooped the bass up, and then into their boat.
They weighed the fish on a $200 Bubba scale, and it read an astonishing 9.5-pounds.
“I figured it was a lake record for sure,” Lutes explained. “We tried calling the state fisheries department, but they’re closed on Saturday. So we next called ‘Fisherman’s Central’, a good nearby tackle shop.
“I told them I had a huge bass, but they were pretty skeptical – until I told them it weighed 9.5-pounds on an expensive Bubba scale that they’d sold me.”
That changed everything, and the tackle shop sent an employee to the lake where photos and videos were made of Lutes and his 25 inch long, 17 inch girth bass. Then the anglers released the frisky largemouth back into the lake.
Ohio has no lake record system. And the state record largemouth is a huge 13.13-pound fish caught by Ron Landsberger in 1976 from a farm pond.
“My biggest bass until that morning was a 4.75-pound largemouth and a 4.75 smallmouth,” said Lutes, who grew up saltwater fishing for seatrout on lower Chesapeake Bay. “That morning on Nimisila was one of the best days of my life.”
