Madysen Meyers hoists a pair of largemouth bass of 4.8 and 4.2 pounds, typifying opening day at Braidwood Lake on March 1.
“Absolutely a stellar opener today,” Pete Banach said. “They bit on everything. My [stepdaughter] even came out to play for a while. And she made sure she used her time wisely [catching one of the biggest].”
She hopes to fish on the bass-fishing team at Reed-Custer next year.

Full view of Madysen Meyer with two of the big largemouth bass from opening day at Braidwood Lake.
Provided photo
Those bass are worth a full-length view.
And it was a wonderful opening day on Braidwood, the cooling lake in southwestern Will County.
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 chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.
To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).