One lake on the Minnesota–South Dakota border has rewritten the state bluegill record not once but twice this year — and the second entry landed just six weeks after the first.
The new benchmark belongs to Dale Hoffman of Ramsey, who boated a 2.21-pound bluegill at Big Stone Lake, near Ortonville, on July 7. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources measured the fish at 11.6 inches and certified it as the state record.
Hoffman hooked the fish about mid-morning on a slip-bobber and red worms, working roughly 10 feet of water. It fought hard enough to nearly pull his rod — a retirement gift — out of the boat before he wrestled it aboard. He drove the bluegill to a grocery store meat counter later that day to have it weighed on certified scales.
The timing is what turned heads. When Hoffman made his catch, the standing record was barely a month and a half old: Chris Mulcahey of Waterville had set it on May 29 with a 2-pound, 11.75-inch bluegill pulled from the very same lake. Big Stone had quietly become the best trophy-panfish destination in Minnesota.
"I can tell you, we sure don't see many bluegills like that one," said Kyle Anderson, an assistant supervisor with the Minnesota DNR.
He pointed to the fish's sex and age. "It's very unusual for a male bluegill to be such a large size," Anderson said, adding that he believed the fish was at least seven years old — enough time to reach a heft most bluegills never manage.
The double record at Big Stone tops off a banner season for Minnesota fisheries. State biologists have certified nine new records this spring, covering everything from black crappie and lake sturgeon to lake trout, rainbow trout, shortnose gar, bigmouth buffalo and blue sucker.
Several came with a story attached. Travis Keating's Rainy River lake sturgeon ran about 80 inches. Sadie Spatafore, 12, claimed the rainbow trout record on the Stewart River. And Lake Superior handed over the lake trout mark twice in a few weeks — first to Matthew Hammer at 44 inches, then to Joe Bouta at 45.5.
"It's fantastic to see these great fish and really shows what amazing fishing opportunities we have in Minnesota," said Mandy Erickson of the DNR.
David Selle, whose 4.1-pound black crappie from Cedar Lake set another of the spring marks, recalled a bite that anglers chase for years. "The fish were so turned on coming up to feed on the flies they were like sharks," he said.
Nobody can say whether Big Stone is finished. A bluegill the size of Hoffman's needs the better part of a decade to grow, and two of them surfacing on one lake in one season is the kind of luck no fisheries manager will promise to repeat. The record stands at 2.21 pounds for now — until the next angler on the border lake has other ideas.
