By Louie Stout
Rex Remington of Freeland, Ind. with new Indiana record smallmouth bass
It’s official. Indiana has a new smallmouth bass record.
Rex Remington of Freeland, Ind. caught the 8.23-pound smallmouth from Lake Monroe on March 5. The fish measured 23 inches and had a 17½-inch girth.
No one was more surprised than the 60-year-old angler who lives 30 minutes from the lake. He thought the big fish he hooked was a largemouth until he got it into the bottom of his 2004 Skeeter bass boat.
Remington was fishing a Berkley Stunna jerkbait on a rocky bank near a channel swing around 11 a.m. when the bass hit. His boat was sitting in about 10 feet of water and he was casting at a 45-degree angle.
“I caught a small largemouth, lost one and caught one about 4 pounds there,” says Remington, who has fished Monroe for 30 years. “So I knew I was in a good area.”
With the water temperature hovering at 45 degrees, he was working the jerkbait slowly; two twitches and a long pause.
When he tried twitching again, the bait didn’t move. He jerked his St. Croix rod and the battle was on. He fished with an “old” Quantum reel and 12-pound Seaguar InvizX line.
“I knew it was a big fish but had no idea it was a smallmouth,” recalls Remington, who has a few caught nice smallmouth from the lake. “He bulldogged pretty good and ran my drag, but I eventually got the fish into the net.”
Rex Remington with record smallmouth bassRemington has caught several 5- to 7-pound bass from Monroe over the years so he assumed this was another big largemouth.
When the netted fish hit the bottom of his boat, he realized he had something special. His Berkley hand-held scale read 8-1. He put the fish in the livewell, pulled out his smart phone and researched the state record.
“I was rattled when I saw the current record was 7-4,” says the Freetown, Ind angler. “I didn’t know what to think, so I sat down and called my cousin.”
Dean Remington told him he needed to get the fish certified, but Rex didn’t want to mess with it. He wanted to release the fish but Dean talked him out of it.
With the help of several fishing buddies working the phones while Rex sat on the lake, a grocery store with certified scales was located an hour away and a DNR Conservation Officer was arranged to be there to confirm the weight. Another friend contacted the district fisheries biologist to meet Remington back at the ramp for more verification.
Record smallmouth bass released
“The entire ordeal took about three hours and I was afraid the fish would die,” he says. “But the biologist checked out the fish and watched me release it at the ramp. The fish was healthy and swam off easily.”
When word leaked out before the Indiana DNR made the announcement official, Remington was overwhelmed by the calls he got from media and other anglers.
The modest manufacturing engineer, who retires soon from Valeo Lighting Systems, will now have more time to spend fishing Lake Monroe.
“I never expected to catch a fish like this,” says Rex. “It’s about being in the right place, at the right time, with the right bait and whole lotta luck!”
Although the bass was released, he plans to get a taxidermist to create a replica mount of the fish.