Fishing season opened on April 6 on Massachusetts’ sprawling, 4,400-acre Wachusett Reservoir, and the state lake trout report was damaged twice inside the week. Most lately, new pending report holder John Stamas caught and launched a 39-inch laker on April 9. The fish weighed in at roughly 20 kilos on a hand scale.
Stamas and good friend Michael Xu began fishing at daybreak. By mid-day, all they needed to present for his or her efforts was a small lake trout and a 3-pound smallmouth.
“I’m actually a smallmouth bass angler, and we get some good ones from Wachusett weighing almost 5 kilos,” Stamas informed Out of doors Life. “We had been fishing heavy football-shaped jigs for bass in an space the place some massive lakers have been caught. That’s once I received a robust mid-day strike on a three-quarter-ounce, blue-and-black soccer jig with a craw plastic trailer. At first, I believed it was an enormous smallmouth, but it surely was a lunker laker.”
Stamas used bait-casting deal with with 12-pound check fluorocarbon line, because the lake is ultra-clear and deep. As a result of he makes use of a robust reel drag, the combat was a quick and livid brawl.
“I need a fast combat with fish I launch, so I exploit a robust drag and horse them in,” says Stamas, 30, from Leominster, Massachusetts. “My precedence is to land them shortly, inside a minute, measure and launch them unhurt.
“The laker didn’t pull line in opposition to my drag. Nevertheless it was rolling on the floor and I believed the road would break or the jig would pull out.”
Luckily, his deal with held, and he muscled the trout onto shore in simply 60 seconds. He measured and launched it shortly, however not earlier than taking pictures to undergo the state for report functions. The 39-inch trout had a 19-inch girth, and weighed about 20 kilos on a transportable scale.
“We couldn’t get an correct weight of the fish as a result of it was wiggling so much,” says Stamas. “The size would learn 19 kilos, then 21 kilos. The numbers had been leaping throughout. We figured 20 kilos was about proper. Then we launched it about one minute after touchdown it.”
Xu videoed the complete fish combat and posted it to his YouTube channel.
Stamas is an everyday in terms of submitting his catches to the Massachusetts Freshwater Sportfishing Awards Program, which garners award pins for anglers in the event that they qualify. Stamas has been awarded a number of pins by the state for his massive Wachusett Reservoir smallmouths, together with a particular gold pin for catching and releasing the longest Massachusetts smallmouth in 2022. He estimated that 22.5-inch smallmouth bass to weigh just below 5 kilos.
If Stamas’ 39-inch lake trout holds up as the most important caught in Massachusetts in 2024, he’ll obtain a particular gold pin for the fish. Odds are good the fish will take that honor, for the reason that state report lake trout is at present a 33-inch, 25-pound 7-ounce fish that William Roy caught from the Quabbin Reservoir in 2016.
Stamas has fished the Wachusett Reservoir tirelessly over the previous 4 years after transferring to the world. Anglers can solely fish “Chu” from the shoreline. Boats aren’t permitted for the reason that reservoir serves the Boston space.
“We stroll an extended technique to get to one of the best fishing spots on Chu,” Stamas explains. “It’s nothing to stroll three to 5 miles across the lake in a day of fishing.”
The Wachusett Reservoir has a 37-mile shoreline. The reservoir was impounded in 1905, and has depths of over 100 ft of air-clear water.
Stamas will get a duplicate mount of the 39-inch laker, and he already is aware of the place he’ll show it.
“I’ve received a spot on the wall in my workplace close to a 45-inch barracuda I caught off Miami,” he says. “I feel they’ll look fairly good collectively on that wall.”