Washington fisheries officials skeptical of ‘record’ smallmouth

YAKIMA – State wildlife officials are questioning whether what was claimed to be a record smallmouth bass caught Labor Day weekend at the mouth of the Yakima River was really just an angler’s tale.

Austin Kenyon, a 22-year-old Kennewick fisherman with dreams of joining the Bassmaster Tour, caught the bass on Sept. 2. He said the fish weighed 9 pounds, 4 ounces, which would make it the heaviest smallmouth ever caught in Washington and breaking a record set 40 years ago.

State and wildlife officials aren’t so sure.

“I’ve had four would-be state records come to me this year,” said Keith Underwood, the state’s angler education coordinator who verifies record catches. “This is the first one the press hit me even before the inquiry hit me. The kid got to the media real fast.”

Kenyon caught the bass on the Saturday of a holiday weekend, and because he couldn’t reach state fisheries officials until Tuesday, he put it in the freezer. That violates state rules for a record fish.

“Once it’s been frozen, there’s no way you could prove he even caught it in this state,” said John Easterbrooks, Fish and Wildlife’s regional fish manager.

However, the department’s regulation that says frozen fish will not be accepted for weighing could be construed to mean the fish simply had to be thawed to be weighed.

The length, 22 inches, and girth of Kenyon’s bass also didn’t seem to jibe with the weight. Other 22-inch record bass around the country have weighed between 6 pounds, 14 ounces to a little more than 8 pounds. Girth ratios project Kenyon’s fish should have been between 6.65 pounds and 7.95 pounds.

The state-record smallmouth, caught by Ray Wonacott in 1966, was nearly 3 inches longer and had a greater girth. It weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces.

As wildlife officials began investigating the new record, they learned Kenyon had gone to two different Kennewick groceries to have his fish weighed. The fish weighed barely 7 pounds at a Red Apple Market, but that scale wasn’t certified. At the second, a Fred Meyer store, the bass weighed 9.32 pounds on a certified scale. He then had the fish mounted.

Would Kenyon cheat to catch a record?

“God, no,” Kenyon said in an interview with the Yakima Herald-Republic. “That’s just ridiculous.”

State wildlife officials interviewed him.

“I told them everything. They came over to my house, interrogating me for a couple hours,” Kenyon said.

Kenyon’s record, although tentatively approved by the department and hailed in several print and online publications, appears unlikely to make it on the books.

“We’re skeptical. Very skeptical,” Easterbrooks said. “Something’s fishy. Something stinks, and it’s not this smallmouth bass.”