Likely record whitefish: Illinois parade on Lake Michigan goes on

Christian Howe made his first Illinois whitefish a good one.

As in he likely caught the next state-record lake whitefish Friday while perch fishing at 95th Street near Calumet Fisheries on the Calumet River.

“I have never caught any whitefish here,’’ the Chicago fireman said Friday afternoon as he hustled the family on a delayed trip to the Chicago RV and Camp Show.

But he knew what he had.

“My mom grew up on the Cisco Chain,’’ he said.

So he knew whitefish from catching them up north in Wisconsin, even in the summer. Howe’s mom, Pamela Johnson-Howe, is also the one who taught him to fish.

This whitefish was a fluke.

“We started out at 87th for perch,’’ Howe said. “We did OK there. There were a lot of small perch there. Moved to 89th. Then putzed our way up the river to the old spots.’’

One of those spots was behind Calumet Fisheries.

When they decided to call it a day, Howe said, “I was pulling up and this sucker [a figure of speech] was on the end of my last line. I think it is a brown or coho, but when it first flashed the surface, I said, `You have to be [kidding] me: That is a whitefish.’ ‘’

Getting the fish is only part of getting a record.

“I was halfway home at 103rd and Stony Island and thought, `I have to stop and figure out how to clean one again,’ ’’ he said. “Then I vaguely remembered you writing [about the state record]. So I called Henry’s.’’

When staff at Henry’s Sports and Bait told him it was 3.1 pounds, he knew his was bigger than that. Ricardo Cruz caught the current Illinois-record whitefish on July 27 while perch fishing at Montrose and weighed it on the certified scale at Henry’s.

Populations of whitefish rebounded enough on Lake Michigan in Illinois that the state added it to the list of state records a few years ago. Capt. Tim Wojnicz on his FinQuest charter boat caught the inaugural Illinois-record (2 pounds, 7.8 ounces) on May 8, 2012 while perch fishing off Waukegan. Then Cruz topped his record last summer.

I do not expect Howe’s to be the last Illinois record for whitefish.

Nor does Howe.

“So used to seeing bigger ones up north, I thought this would be a good dinner, then, `Wait a second,’ and booked it down to Henry’s,’’ he said.

Good thing he did.

“When I pulled it out of the bucket [at Henry’s], both their jaws dropped,’’ he said.

It weighed 4.45 pounds. Tom Palmisano at Henry’s put the fish on ice. A biologist from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources should certify it on Tuesday.

“I called my wife [Betsy Howe] and said I am going to be late,’’ Howe said.

Then he called his mother.

“She can’t believe it either,’’ he said.

Howe, who was fishing with John Anderer, was using a crappie rig with medium fathead minnows on 6-pound XL monofilament line with spinning gear.

“I am still kind of blow away by it,’’ he said. “I would have felt stupid if I had eaten it.’’

That’s a good piece of advice: Be smart with your Illinois whitefish.