Personal-best carp: Sara Baillie moves up in class on the Chicago River

Sara Baillie upped her personal-best carp from the Chicago River to earn FOTW honors.

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Sara Baillie caught her personal-best carp from the Chicago River. Provided photo

Sara Baillie caught her personal-best carp from the Chicago River.

Provided

Glen Gorman nominated his girlfriend, Sara Baillie, for her personal best carp. She caught the 17.4-pounder Saturday afternoon from the Chicago River on corn/shrimp boilies from Wacker Baits on a hair rig. It was a healthy release.

“Getting closer to that 20-pound goal!” Gorman emailed.

I told Gorman they should be aiming higher, more like the 30-pound mark, so I would need to dig up the unofficial carp record for the Chicago River or Chicago lakefront.

Any mention of Wacker Baits brings back fond memories of the old Chicago Carp Classic from a couple decades ago.

FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

Submit nominations by message on Facebook (Dale Bowman), on Twitter (@BowmanOutside) and Instagram (@BowmanOutside) or email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com).

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