Angler lands ‘unicorn’ largemouth, weighing nearly 9.5 pounds, in northeast Ohio reservoir

Akron, Ohio — Will Lutes is glad he decided to go fishing on Saturday, April 12.

Really glad.

That’s the day that Lutes, of Akron, landed a 9-pound, 3.5-ounce largemouth bass on Nimisila Reservoir in northeast Ohio.

“It was definitely the biggest largemouth I’ve ever caught in my life,” the 25-year-old Lutes told Ohio Outdoor News recently.

Lutes’ backstory includes growing up fishing saltwater on Chesapeake Bay with his grandfather near his mother’s hometown of Newport News, Virginia.

“That’s what got me into fishing,” he said.

Lutes, who grew up in Akron, attended Ohio State University to play baseball. He says about the only other thing he liked to do at the time was fish, so he joined the bass club while he was at OSU.

“It was a great experience, for sure,” he says. “I definitely had a different perspective than everyone else on the team coming from my saltwater experience. I really had no knowledge of bass fishing other than messing around at small ponds.”

The backstory on the 9-pound bass includes Lutes’ fishing partner at OSU, Jacob Middleton.

“He was who I really learned a lot from on the bass scene,” Lutes said. “He’s been fishing for them his entire life.”

As it happened, Middleton phoned Lutes after the Ohio DNR Division of Wildlife recently ranked its top inland bass lakes in the state. Nimisila was at the top of the list.

Lutes was somewhat familiar with Nimisila, having fished it a couple of times in the past.

So, the two buddies made a plan to go fish the lake, though it was still rather chilly in early April.

“It was cold when we launched the boat,” Lutes said. “We were getting pelted with snow. But, the only reason we were out there is because he saw that (ODNR) listing. If you would have told me before I caught that fish that I could sit at home on the couch while it’s snowing and watch the Masters (golf tournament) or go out and get skunked? I would have chosen the former.”

But, getting skunked was not in the plans. Lutes said he and Middleton started catching bass right off the jump and had four or five other good fish before the big one hit.

“We were happy with the day, even before that fish came around,” Lutes said. “It was a great day of fishing that just got a lot better.”

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The big 9-pounder hit a crankbait fished in deep water.

“I’ve never been a huge crankbait fisherman but I am now,” Lutes said, laughing. “That was the joke going around the entire weekend.”

A 9-pound bass, as most know, is a rarity in Ohio or most anywhere other than the southern U.S.

“The rarity of that fish to have survived, not that Nimisila is a super-pressured lake, but to survive some (fishing) pressure, and survive the winters is amazing,” Lutes said. “That fish had to see a lot of eating cycles. And, our (fish’s) eating cycles are so short this far north.”

The water temperature on Nimisila was only 43 degrees when Lutes caught the fish.

“Either it was a really old fish or it was just overly aggressive to get that big,” he surmised. “That just doesn’t happen. I think fishing a little bit deeper probably helped. That fish probably doesn’t come out of the deep water very often.”

After landing the largemouth, Lutes released it safely to fight another day.

“For that fish to get that big this far north has to be super rare,” he said.

Lutes said he and Middleton did phone Fisherman’s Central in the Akron area and the ODNR tip line to check to see if Lutes’ bass was a lake record for Nimisila. That information, though, proved hard to flesh out.

Lutes said one of his colleagues from the Penn State University fishing team phoned him after the big catch.

“He’s as avid of a bass fisherman as I know,” Lutes said. “He just said ‘congratulations on that fish, it’s once in a lifetime. And, please know that that will never happen in northeast Ohio again.’”

“I’m well aware of what a unicorn that thing is,” Lutes said.

But, since Lutes did release the bass, you never know. Someone could catch it again and experience the thrill of their life.

“We were talking about it before we called Fisherman’s Central and wondered if we really wanted the world to know about this place?” Lutes said. “This could have been the first time that fish had been caught and the likelihood that there’s another one in there of that size is minimal. So, the likelihood of someone catching something that big in there again is so rare and this was once in a lifetime, so might as well enjoy it.

Lutes said there are other motivations as well.

“If some kid hears about it and decides to go fish (Nimisila) then it’s all worth the while,” Lutes summed. “If it inspires one more kid to go out and fish instead of sitting in front of a TV screen then it’s all worth it.”