Fish of the Year Program

If the DNR ever needs someone to endorse its online fishing reports, Micah Aldrich would be the guy.

After reading on the DNR website about the chances of catching Lake Michigan walleye from the piers in Michigan City, Aldrich and a few friends headed that way the day after Thanksgiving.

Photo: Micah Aldrich, walleye, 30 inches

“The only way I knew about it was the DNR website,” said Aldrich, 23, of Indianapolis. “It said you could catch them in November and December. I’d gone up there for steelhead quite a bit, but this was literally the first time I’d ever tried (for walleye). I appreciated the advice.”

Shortly before dusk, Aldrich hooked what he was after — a walleye that measured 30 inches.

He and his fishing buddies knew that was big and wondered how it compared to the state record. It was a bit short (11 pounds, 10 ounces compared to the record of 14-4), but Aldrich entered it into the DNR’s Fish of the Year Contest.

And he won.

“Last year’s was 22 and a half inches, so I thought it had a good chance,” Aldrich said.

Photo: Jacob Fiorio, lake trout, 29 inches

The Fish of the Year Contest is one of two programs the DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife manages to recognize big fish caught in Indiana waters. While the Record Fish Program uses weight as the determining measurement, the Fish of the Year Program goes by length.

Eighteen anglers registered winning catches representing 26 fish species in the 2012 Fish of the Year contest.

Photo: David Ben Mullen, blue catfish, 48 inches

Multiple winners included Jeff Armstrong of Wheatfield with five awards (bluegill, rock bass, sauger, white bass and yellow perch), Jacob Fiorio of Dyer with three (brown trout, bullhead and lake trout) and Travis Bundy of Mitchell with two (flathead catfish and longnose gar).

Fiorio’s father, Steve, also got into the act with a largemouth bass that measured 23.5 inches.

“It’s not something I really set out to do,” Armstrong said regarding Fish of the Year entries. “But it’s in the back of your mind if you catch something big and get a good picture and measurement, even if you’re turning it loose.”

Photo: Derrick Sochacki, freshwater drum, 38 inches

Bluegill and walleye have been his favorite pursuits, but he caught the sauger bug in 2012, especially after catching the 18-inch Fish of the Year winner below Norway Dam on the Tippecanoe River.

“I wanted to catch one because I hadn’t caught one before,” he said. “They’re sort of not an attractive fish until you catch one. Then they’re pretty. That sort of got me hooked.”

David Ben Mullen has been a frequent Fish of the Year winner and always with blue catfish.

This year’s winner was the seventh for Mullen. It measured 48 inches and weighed about 55 pounds. That’s well short of the state record (105 pounds) but representative of the size he caught regularly on the Ohio River until recently.

Photo: Gavin McDonald, striped bass, 25 inches

“I had been averaging about four or five fish over 50 pounds until the last two or three years,” said Mullen, whose fishing zone covers a five-mile stretch of the river near Harrison County. “Last year I caught a 45, and a couple 30s, a few 20s. That was a really, really bad year for me. We’ve got about a 50-member club and we noticed in our tournaments that the poundage was down, way down.”

Mullen, a retiree, says he’ll be patrolling the Ohio in search of big fish again this year, at least when he’s not hunting deer, squirrels or wild turkeys.

If you catch a big fish this year and find it falls short of the state record, the Fish of the Year program may be an option for gaining recognition for your catch.

Entering is easy, and the rules are simple to follow. Visit Wildlife.IN.gov/3577.htm for more information and an entry form.

Photo: Irene Morales, channel catfish, 39.3 inches

Regulations in red are new this year.

Purple text indicates an important note.