I love to bass fish! Been catching them since I was 5.

Biggest fish weighed 10lbs 2oz. Caught fish from the big one all the way down to a 3"long! :D

I've recently started going fishing with my bro in law in SILO. Didn't go this summer but went last summer and the summer before.

He has access to some killer lakes! Seriously, some of the best bass fishing I've ever done! We were catching 50-75 fish a day!

I caught one that was a little over 5lbs and he was estatic over that fish! Don't get me wrong, a 5lber is a fine fish, but usually it takes something over 8lbs to get me super excited.

He told me a 7lber is a stud up there and he's never caught one over 6lbs.

He hooked a nice 2lb chunk and as he got it to the boat, he said "Holy S***!" No kidding, a big bass came up and swallowed half of his 2lber! I saw it and reached down and tried to get my arm under her to pitch her into the boat. That fish was 8lbs all day long! She was a nice one! But she spit my bro in laws bass out and got out of dodge before I could get her in the boat!

So, what is a "trophy" size bass on average in Illinois?

I've lived and bass fished my hole life in SIL and have caught one seven pounder out of my aunts farm pond and an eight pounder out of Washington County lake which I released after a few pics and taking it's weight from there shops scale. Probly people who fish Lake Shelbyville or lake Eygiped cetch really big bass like around 7 or 8 pounds pretty often. I think like all states pretty much that it depends on what lake you go to. I personaly cetch 3 to 4 pounders on a regular basis in the public and private lakes that I go to and to me that a really nice sized fish and alot of fun to cetch. I have never really hurd of anyone cetching a bass over 8 pounds though.

State record is 13lbs. 1oz from a lake up near chicago. That record was set in 1976 and in my opinion has the potential to remain for a loonnngg time. I've never heard of anyone even coming close to that kind of weight in SILO.

We live at Lake of Egypt but if we catch 5lbers we still get excited..Some of the fish B has caught and released I would have def got mounted if I would have caught it myself so I guess it depends on the person as well but I would say 7 or 8 lbs is trophy size around here.....:cool:

I remember reading a year or two ago that biologist doing a shocking study brought up what would be the new state record bass. Came from a public lake in SIL. Some might know which one it is. I have personally caught two ten pounders one year apart to the day from the same tree in August. So you have to figure during spawn they would have been at least twelve.

I agree with everybody that a 7 to 8 lb'er is a great bass for around here. The way Coffeen Lake produces bass it wouldn't surprise me to see a 10 plus lb bass come out of there.

The biggest bass that I have mounted for people are in the 7 to 7 .6 pounds.I did do one that was post spawn they weighed close to 8 lbs.
The vast majority 6.9 lbs

3 LBS - nice fish
4 LBS - real nice fish
5 LBS - wow, big fish
6 LBS - wow, real big fish
7 LBS - Holy Moly
8+ LBS - %@#& ME RUNNING, LOOK AT THAT BIG S.O.B.

Not a big bass fisherman here so anything over 3 pounds gets me excited. My daughter and I caught a 3lb 17incher out at beaver dam state park and everyone around the bank that saw it was shocked to see a fish that big.

I caught a 18 incher (5 lbs) in 2000 and had it mounted. It's still the biggest bass I've ever caught.

For me a bass at 5 pounds is equal to a 130 inch whitetail. Then add 10 points to the antlers for each pound.

I agree w/ mattdo.. an 8 pounder is a nice Bass.

My friends Dad caught his first one at LOE back in the early 70's.

Caught two bass in 1995 that were both 24" long, my best ever. Caught one in the morning fishing with my brother inlaw and caught the second later that day fishing with my father inlaw and brother inlaw. We were fishing a peabody lake near Freeburg my father inlaw had a key for. Don't know exact weight but I've never caught one that big since. They are mounted together and they have never invited me to fish with them since then.LOL

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c349/putz_1893/8pdl07wnrmk2u7akkn95-2.jpg

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c349/putz_1893/8pdl07wnrmk2u7akkn95-2.jpg

Yowzzers!!!!!

OK, I've been wanting to post this from the first time I saw the thread...
No it wasn't a bass, but read on.
We were at the Carlyle spillway to Bowfish for bighead carp. We were floating down toward the suspension bridge when a few came by. We both shot and somehow I connected and C didn't. When wee got it to the boat we could see that it was pretty good sized so I weighed it and it was the biggest our club had taken this year in IL (we have a season long tourney each year).
So we proceed to measure it and take pictures to submit it to the IB9C tourney. Now by this time we've floated nearly to the General Dean Bridge which has several folks walking across it. And as I'm holding it for this pic a guy on the bridge sees it and says to his family as he's leaning and pointing, "LOOK AT THAT FISH!".
By now we are only about 15 yards from the bridge. He asked us how much it weighed. I told him 25lbs (I think it was actually 24lb 14oz). Next thing he asks is..."IS THAT A BASS?" :eek:
If you know me very well, you'll know I could not resist this temptation..."YEAH!" I told him. At which C nearly hit me and set the record straight that it was really a bighead carp. :( :( :(

I was sooooo looking forward to finding out just how long the story of the 25lb bass taken at Carlyle spillway would take to get out and back to me. :D:D:D

Here's my 25 pound notBass.
http://www.siloutdoors.com/imagehosting/4334a7b8f630d325.jpg

Ah.........Bout that big.....lol

I caught a 9-12 a few years back out of my great uncles farm pond close to pinkneyville. The taxidermist said it didn't have any eggs. Does anybody know about how much the eggs might have weighed in a fish that size?

I fish lake shelbyville on a regular basis. For crappie though :)

I know that the lake record was caught just this year out of it. Weighed 8.7 I think. The majoirty of the fish caught from the lake are 2-4lbs and 5 ad 6lbers are really nice.

Iv personally caught 3 bass over 8 pounds in the last 2 years. So I guess iv been pretty lucky! Im only 19 but I would agree with everybody else that 6-8lbers are very very nice fish for around here.

Here are some pictures of my big ones. Pictures often dont do justice. especially when your 6'4 195 like me! The first picture is from a pond. And pictures 2 and 3 are from a lake, we were crappie fishing in the spring with ice still on most of the lake, flippin jigs 18" under a float around docks and she hit the crappie jig. Awesome battle on a 12' rod!

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t79/birdman1990_11/Tyler_Brandenburg_0081.jpg
http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t79/birdman1990_11/02150915111.jpg
http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t79/birdman1990_11/02150915121.jpg

I have lived in IL my entire life and I will tell you any bass over 3 lbs is considered big. With that being said, I have caught a lot of bass over 3 lbs, many 4 lbers, 5 lbers, a few 6 lbers, one 7 lber, and my personal best is an 8 lb 6 oz. Over the years, almost 1/2 of my big fish came out of an old 15 acre farm pond. This past spring, I had my best day of bass fishing ever; I caught 4 bass that went over 22 lbs total including my 8 lber.

I have heard about the boys in SIL catching some dandy bass especially on Newton. We do have good bass fishing in this state, but I will tell you anytime I catch a bass approaching 4 lbs I cherish it. By the way, most of the big bass I've caught came on a jig with plastic craw trailer. You want an awesome jig? Try Jig Monster Mayhem Flippin Jigs guys, I'm not affiliated with them at all, but they are awesome jigs. I won't fish anything else.

I have lived in IL my entire life and I will tell you any bass over 3 lbs is considered big. With that being said, I have caught a lot of bass over 3 lbs, many 4 lbers, 5 lbers, a few 6 lbers, one 7 lber, and my personal best is an 8 lb 6 oz. Over the years, almost 1/2 of my big fish came out of an old 15 acre farm pond. This past spring, I had my best day of bass fishing ever; I caught 4 bass that went over 22 lbs total including my 8 lber.

I have heard about the boys in SIL catching some dandy bass especially on Newton. We do have good bass fishing in this state, but I will tell you anytime I catch a bass approaching 4 lbs I cherish it. By the way, most of the big bass I've caught came on a jig with plastic craw trailer. You want an awesome jig? Try Jig Monster Mayhem Flippin Jigs guys, I'm not affiliated with them at all, but they are awesome jigs. I won't fish anything else.

I'm purely impressed with the pulling power of the northern strain largemouth! Man they're bulldogs up there! Super aggressive too! Our bass our lazy compared to the northern bass.

I usually fish up there around June and my two favorite baits are a couple of my favorites for fishing lakes down here. I make sure I bring plenty of Zoom Black Trick Worms and Zoom Baby Bass and Red Pearl Super Flukes.

I don't know if the bass up there in the lakes we fished had never seen those baits before or if they were super aggressive, but it was utterly ridiculous how fast and furious the fishing was in the middle of summer. 90 degrees outside and they were hitting just as good as they were when the sun was coming up.

The flukes are fun! I tied up a tandem rig, fishing two at a time and doubled up on fish multiple times! Pretty dang fun hauling in twin 2lbers at the same! time.

I couldn't find any of these particular baits at the local Wally World and my bro in law orders them now from bass pro. Give them a try, worked for us up there.:)

My Dad was fortunate enough to catch a 7# and 8# back to back within 5 minutes of each other. He used to fish the I.B.A.A. so he fished quite a bit, about every other weekend. It's been several years, but I'm pretty sure he pulled those out of the Ozarks. He was so excited after the first one he called my mom....she then got another call 5 minutes later.

Personal biggest is about 4 1/2.

I have been fishing tournaments with my grandfather in the state of Illinois for about 15 years now, the average size coming in is around 2-3 lbs but usually the big bass of the tourney is anywhere from 5-7 lbs. so yeah, 5-7 lbs is big for lakes in the state, but we have a couple ponds around the northern part of Ofallon that we catch 4-6 lb bass every time we go out. biggest we've caught out of one of the ponds is 9 lbs, and on that day we had 5 bass over 6 pounds... they were pre-spawn... lol fuuuuuun time... ill try to dig up some pictures i took of a couple of the fish...

Nice hawgs!

Big- anything over 5, Hawg/Trophy- anything over 8lbs.