For a guy who didn’t start fishing seriously until he was in his 50s, Andy Kilen is certainly making up for lost time.
Now, 76, he has his own boat, fishes whenever he can with his grandson Gabriel, and loves to cast for northern pike and largemouth bass.
But no day will match the one he experienced in late May. Fishing with his grandson, on Lura Lake in southern Minnesota, he began casting an orange spinnerbait over the top of a weed bed. He detected a distinct hit and felt the line grow heavy as he began to reel in the fish.
“I thought at first that it was just a medium-size northern that had gotten tangled in the weeds,” Kilen told Wired2Fish.
When the largemouth bass at the end of his line came up, though, he knew he had something special. Gabriel lipped the bass once his grandpa worked the fish to the boat, then they both stared at the monstrous catch.
The bass measured 22 ½ inches long – a true trophy, especially in the Northwoods where largemouth seldom grow that big. They snapped a few pictures, then released Kilen’s catch.
Gabriel later began investigating Minnesota’s relatively new catch-and-release state-record system, and he urged his grandpa to see if the fish would qualify.
They followed requirements and submitted a clear photograph of the fish on a measuring board, a witness statement, and testimony that the bass was released alive and unharmed.
In mid-August, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources announced that Kilen’s largemouth bass was a catch-and-release state record, the first one in the books. It barely surpassed the minimum qualifying length of 22 inches.
Minnesota’s weight state record is 8 pounds, 15 ounces, caught in October of 2005 at Auburn Lake.
What made the experience even more special for Kilen is that he was fishing with his grandson.
“I’ve been fishing with Gabriel since he was 3,. He’s 26 now and works at Mayo’s Clinic, so he can’t get out as often as we used to,” Kilen said. “But we still go on weekends, and we’ve had some great times together.”
For Kilen, it was just another highlight in his new life as a fisherman. Earlier, he didn’t take to the sport because he had three daughters who didn’t like to fish. The family did enjoy camping and spending time in the outdoors, though,
When Gabriel showed an interest in fishing at a young age, grandpa began taking him. And the two became hooked together.
They headed to Lura Lake, a shallow, weedy lake in southern Minnesota, that late May day because it was early in the season and Kilen knew the vegetation wouldn’t be too thick yet.
“I’m the type of fisherman who likes to just drop my trolling motor and start casting to weed edges,” Kilen said. “My favorite species to fish for are northern pike and largemouth bass, because they both use the same habitat.
“We’ve caught some other nice bass on the lakes down here and Gabriel caught a 26-inch walleye that day. It was just a great day.”
