‘I was in disbelief.’ Fishing Guide releases Montana’s pending Smallmouth Bass record

Fort Peck Lake in northeastern Montana is a vast reservoir with plenty of walleye and smallmouth bass. And it’s where part-time fishing guide Josh Johnson caught the bronzeback of his dreams on Tuesday.

“I always wanted to catch a fish for the record book, and since 2017 I was chasing the small Montana record,” Johnson said. Outdoor living. “I guide part-time on the lake [when I’m not at] my job in the oil field in North Dakota, and I know the lake very well.”

Johnson, who lives in Williston, North Dakota, went to Fort Peck on Tuesday for a promotional trip with an fishing company. He was out fishing with Rob Doke Swate Fishing Companycameraman Cody Adams and tournament angler John Hunter.

“We were in my 23-foot Skeeter, and we were really hitting the smallmouths that day,” Johnson says. “We had a bag of five fish over 30 pounds, with lots of 5- and 6-pounders. I estimate we caught about thirty bass that day.”

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Johnson says that shortly after 5 p.m., when the day was almost over, he picked up the bait casting rod that Hunter had just used to catch another 5-pounder. It was fitted with a ¾-ounce brown-green jig on 12-pound fluorocarbon line.

“I cast to a rocky spot in the main lake where I fish regularly when conditions are right,” says Johnson, owner Fishcast fishing guide service. “I caught a small bass and about three casts later I got hit, but the fish dropped the lure. Then the jig just felt heavy, so the bass must have come back to hit the jig [again.]”

The fish ran straight towards the boat and then went deep. A few minutes later, Johnson worked it up for everyone in the boat to see.

“It was a short, intense fight, and when Rob lifted him into the boat, I couldn’t believe it,” Johnson said. “I put a measuring tape on it and it was over two feet long. I had never caught a smallmouth for that long and I thought it might be a record. But the bass were long and lean, not short and blocky like most of the big smallmouths from Fort Peck.

Johnson weighed the bass on a hand scale he had in the boat. It showed that the fish weighed more than 4.5 kilos – enough to set a new record in Montana. (The current record of 7.84 pounds was also caught at Fort Peck Reservoir in 2020.)

Johnson placed the lunker in his boat’s livewell and ran straight to a nearby marina, where they placed the bass on certified scales. It weighed 8.4 pounds and was 22.4 inches long. Johnson says he has already filed the paperwork and is waiting for the state to approve the new record.

After weighing the bass, Johnson returned it to its life, ran to a deep-water structure in the lake and released the fish.

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“I released that fish and it quickly swam away,” said Johnson, who plans to have a replica mount made. “I know where I released it, and maybe in a year I can revisit it and maybe break my own record.”