On Nov. 3, 2022, Gregg Gallagher caught a 10.15-pound smallmouth bass on the Ontario waters of western Lake Erie. He was using a drop-shot rig and sharing the boat with his son, Grant.

Gregg’s fish ended up being the largest smallmouth bass ever caught in the Great Lakes, and one of the top five in the United States. It measured 23.75 inches in length with a girth of 19.38 inches. The previous Ontario record of 9.84 pounds had stood since 1954. That fish was 24 inches long with a 18.3 inch girth.

Gregg Gallagher with his 10.15-pound Ontario record smallmouth bass.

“I was working typical smallmouth bass lures on the bottom in the area we were fishing, and on this cast a fish hit it before it even touched the lake bottom,” Gregg told a reporter from The Beacon. “I thought it was a big sheepshead at first. Once Grant and I saw the bass, there was plenty of yelling and screaming.”

Before the fish could be certified as the Ontario record, by rule it had to be put on ice and then examined. In the YouTube video below, you’ll see fisheries biologist Zak Slagle from the Ohio Division of Natural Resources as he dissects the fish and explains what he’s learned, including its age and sex. You’ll also hear from Travis Harman of the Ohio DNR as he explains seeing the fish alive when it was brought in, as well as other details.

In the top right corner of this length-to-weight graph, you’ll see a single gold dot, which represents Gregg Gallagher’s record smallmouth. Note how the gold dot is directly in line with the curved gold line, which is data from previously caught Lake Erie smallmouth. Though it sounds silly to say, Gregg’s fish was “average” in terms of its length-to-weight relationship. (The green line is for Lake Erie largemouth bass.)

Most interesting to me is the fact the massive smallmouth’s stomach was empty, and hadn’t yet formed any eggs. Learning how fisheries biologists determine the age was fascinating, too. Gregg’s fish is a female, which was to be expected, and the age is 16.