Hunting ducks & jigging big fish: Illinois-record burbot caught on Lake Michigan

Freddie Ray Prebianca jigged up a surprise Sunday morning, as in a state-record burbot.

‘‘At first, I thought it was a catfish,’’ Prebianca emailed of the catch in 100 feet of water out of North Point Marina in Winthrop Harbor. ‘‘Then I realized it was a huge burbot. My friend Teddy Mazor was ready with the net.’’

They caught it all on video, too.

‘‘Once he got it in the boat, I asked my friends if we could eat it and found out it was a delicacy — poor man’s lobster,’’ Prebianca emailed. ‘‘Later on in the day, my friend Sean Horvath had looked up the current state record. He said I definitely have a 10-pound fish. That’s a record fish, he said.’’

It turned out to be the Illinois record (9 pounds, 5.6 ounces), unseating Ken Maggiore’s burbot (9-4.8) by less than an ounce.

But there is a good chance Prebianca’s burbot weighed more when it was caught. He had it in his live well for nearly 30 hours before it was certified.

Let’s backtrack to the beginning — well, last year.

‘‘Started jigging for lake trout out of the blue last year while we were duck hunting for divers,’’ Prebianca emailed. ‘‘My buddy Kenny Kozak decided to jig on the bottom of the lake to see if there’s anything down there. Within five minutes, he had a lake trout on up to the boat. That day, we caught 10 lake trout jigging with 1-ounce [Lunkerhunt Hatch Spin], and the rest was history.’’

Well, history with twists and turns.

Prebianca, who lives in Morris and is a Local 1 laborer working in downtown Chicago, tried to find a place to get his burbot weighed officially and finally called Henry’s Sports and Bait to set up for Monday.

Henry’s had weighed Maggiore’s burbot and then-record whitefish, both of which were caught March 22, 2017, at Montrose Harbor in the greatest record day in Illinois fishing history.

But regional fisheries administrator Rob Miller answered Prebianca’s message right away Monday morning. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has started having access to certified scales. The northern region now has two certified scales under new fisheries chief Mike McClelland.

Miller found one scale with fisheries biologist Frank Jakubicek (Lake and Cook counties), and they met halfway. Then Miller drove to Morris on Monday evening. He weighed and certified the burbot, though he had Lake Michigan Program manager Vic Santucci look at a photograph of the fish. Miller had not encountered burbot often. Even on Lake Michigan, they are a sporadic catch.

Miller said even though the fish had been kept in a live well, it probably lost weight.

‘‘I had a lot of discharge in the live well over the next day and a half,’’ Prebianca emailed. ‘‘I’m sure I lost a half-pound of weight.’’

Prebianca’s burbot was 33 3/8 inches long with a girth of 16¾ inches. Maggiore’s burbot was 32 inches long with a girth of 17½.

‘‘I’m glad I got it in at the nick of time and beat the current record by a half of an ounce!!!’’ Prebianca exclaimed.

For perspective, Sean Konrad caught the world-record burbot (25 pounds, 2 ounces) on March 27, 2010, from Lake Diefenbaker, Saskatchewan, according to the International Game Fish Association.