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New Jersey State Record Hybrid Bass
Bill Schmidt Culvers Lake July 1999
16 lbs 4 ounces

Story written by Bob Decker in 2001

NJ record wiper

At first, Bill Schmidt thought he was snagged on the bottom. The rod that he set up with the line out the back of the boat started to bend and, by the time he had picked it up, it was almost doubled over. "The rod
wasn't bouncing and I was afraid it was going to break," Schmidt says today, recalling the events of two summers ago on Culver Lake. "I thought I was caught up in the weeds."

But a tug on the line resulted in an even bigger tug on the other end, and Schmidt knew immediately he had hooked into something big that day on the private lake located in Branchville. A half hour later, a grinning Schmidt was holding up a huge hybrid bass for his fishing buddy Hiromu Imeda to admire. Even later, the weighing scales at the Stokes Sports Shop on Rte. 206 confirmed what both had known all along: the fish was a state record at 16 pounds, 4 ounces. "I knew the old record was 10-13 and we both knew this fish was way heavier than that," Schmidt says. "It didn't even fit in the landing net, it was so big."

Schmidt and his friend Hiromu Imeda had been having a good day and had already landed a dozen hybrids between two and four pounds, seven or eight pickerel and a couple largemouth when the big fish hit.They had just anchored over a dropoff and Schmidt had put a bucktail-shiner combo on the one of his three poles he had rigged with 10-pound test line. His choice usually 6-pound test, but it was a bright, sunny day and Schmidt wanted to fish deep with one pole. He cast the lure out the back of the boat and set the pole down to tend to his other rods. It didn't take long for the fish to hit.

"He made about six real good strong runs... at times, it felt as if I was backing down on a tuna," Schmidt says. "We had to up anchor and Hiromu would row after the fish. It was a battle ... it took me a good half hour to bring him in. I was lucky the fish hit on the pole with the 10-pound test ... I was also lucky that Hiromu was with me."

When Schmidt and Imeda have the time to make a day out of it, they'll go to Hopatcong, Greenwood Lake, Round Valley, Spruce Run or Monksville Reservoir. It's when he has only an hour or two to fish that he'll hop in the rowboat at his in-laws and fish the 550-acre Culver Lake, which is practically in his backyard. Often, he'll take one or both of this sons ,10-year-old A.J. and Hank, 5, with him.

"We have been stocking hybrids at Culver for only a couple of years so this fish had to have come from one of the neighboring lakes, probably Owassa," Schmidt says. "The state did a scale analysis that showed the fish to be about nine years old."

An amateur taxidermist, Schmidt stuffed the fish himself, and it now hangs in the living room of his home. He also has a framed certificate that the New Jersey Fish and Game Commission sent him proclaiming he had set a state record for hybrid bass. "You know, even now when I look at the fish, I still can't believe I caught it," Schmidt says. "But it's there on the wall ... and it does look good." A lot better than the weeds he thought he had.

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