State Record Largemouth Bass!

[eric myers 2]

Last update: October 4, 2005 at 7:19 AM
Outdoors: No whoppers to land this lunker
Dennis Anderson 
Star Tribune 
Published October 4, 2005 

No fish has been the subject of more cock-and-bull than the largemouth bass in Minnesota.

At one time, the biggest bass caught in the state was actually caught in Florida (it was transported here and fraudulently represented as a Minnesota record).

Another Minnesotan years ago claimed to have caught the state's biggest bucketmouth, submitting as evidence not a bulbous bass but a photo of a bulbous bass.

His dog, he said, ate the fish itself.

Still another angler once boated what he claimed to be a state record largemouth.

Except, upon review, the season wasn't open for bass when the fish was caught.

Perhaps, as the outdoor writer Ed Zern once observed, "All fishermen are born honest. But they get over it."

Enter now Mark Raveling, 54, of suburban Spring Park, casting a buzz bait on tiny Auburn Lake (261 acres) near Victoria, at about 10:30 a.m. Monday.

A tournament bass angler for more than 20 years, Raveling, with fishing partner Jay Carlson of Prior Lake, was targeting lunkers.

"On Saturday, Jay and I caught some nice 6- and 7-pounders in Auburn," Raveling said. "So we went back."

Raveling's first bass Monday whacked a Blue Fox Double Spin Buzzer, a top-water bait. "The bass hit the bait so hard its tail came all the way around," Raveling said.

Employing 40-pound-test line, Raveling winched the potbellied largemouth to boatside and weighed it, preliminarily, at 8 pounds, 15 ounces -- a mark that topped the current record, set in 1994, of 8 pounds, 12.75 ounces. That bass, also landed in October, was caught in Tetonka Lake in LeSueur County.

En route to likely verification as a state record, the weight of Raveling's bass was verified on a scale at Cabin Fever Sporting Goods in Victoria and the fish was formally identified by a Department of Natural Resources biologist.

Next stop for the record-to-be?

Monday afternoon, the burly bass was still in Raveling's livewell, as he and Carlson continued to sling baits onto Lake Auburn.

Said Raveling: "I might get the fish into the aquarium at the new Cabela's store in Rogers."

Dennis Anderson is at danderson@startribune.com.