BassBlaster

More Evidence for Goldfish Baits

Ever hear of “alternate methods” fish records? Me neither, until now: Missouri’s 20-year-old Dylan Gilmore just set the new “alternate methods” largie record with a 9-02 caught on a…trotline.

Yep. A largie was fooled by a dang catfish rig – wait: we now know what the Missouri Rig will be! – which you would’ve known about already if you subscribed to the daily BassBlaster email (sign up here).

But that’s not the most interesting part. If you’re a longer-time BassParade reader, you’ll remember a piece we ran a while back about a scientific study showing that bass prefer goldfish over other fish. Bear with me here – an excerpt:

The order of ingestion was suggestive of a preference for goldfish, then bluegill and finally channel catfish. Handling time was greater for channel catfish, less for bluegill, and the least for goldfish.

So back to the alternate record. Excerpts from the article on it are below, with the stuff to connect the dots highlighted – because you’re wondering, like I did, what catfish bait could possibly fool a bass:

> 20-year-old Dylan Gilmore of Perry. Gilmore and his friend, Austin Lake, had set their trotline on April 27 using goldfish as bait, hoping to catch some catfish at Ka-Tonka Lake.

> “I reached down and grabbed the fish and thought ‘oh my gosh, this thing is huge.’ It felt like a dream at first. I have never seen a bass that big in person.”

> “Once I knew how much it weighed, I looked up the record online,” Gilmore said. “I found the web page on the Missouri Department of Conservation’s website. At first, I didn’t think I had broken the record, but that’s when I saw the line for alternative methods.”

> Missouri’s previous state record, which stood for 10 years, was an 8-pound, 2.2-ounce, 24-inch fish caught via trotline, using goldfish bait in Country Boy Estate Lake in Boone County on Dec. 16, 2002.

Goldfish. GOLD FISH. That’s the secret, my bassin’ friends. Maybe that’s what color Steve Kennedy’s secret jerkbait is?!

Tie one on, see what happens. Just have to find something goldfish-colored.

Btw, Dylan kept the bass in an aerated cooler, then released it. Good man. Here it is:

And the MO hook-n-line record largie is a huge 13-14 caught from Bull Shoals a long time ago: April 1, (seriously!) 1961.

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