Hybrid striper and muskie: Fish in unexpected places double up on Fish of the Week

John Wall’s surprising hybrid striped bass. | Provided

Fish in unexpected places make good Fish of the Week.

John Wall caught the surprise of a 24.5-inch hybrid striped bass with a girth of 18 inches Sunday on the Illinois River. That was not the only surprise.

“I caught it on a Spook [topwater], weird for late November,” Wall emailed. “But we seen a little surface activity and after catching nothing for a few hours, I caught this one on the first cast.”

For size perspective, Wall, a senior at Lyons Township, 17, is a strapping basketball player.

Or take Marc Woodcock, a golf instructor, who aced a 43-inch, 20-pound muskie unexpectedly while fishing the Fox River in downtown Aurora.

“No net or pliers,” Larry Narro messaged. “Look at his face, very excited.”

Deservedly so.

Marc Woodcock with an unexpected muskie.

FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

Submit nominations by message on Facebook (Dale Bowman), on Twitter (@BowmanOutside) and Instagram (@BowmanOutside) or email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com).