Surprise while perch fishing the South Side slips: First lake trout earns cheers and FOTW honors

Chris Horvath made his first lake trout, a good one, memorable. | Provided

Jake Kueker took Chris Horvath to experience perch on the South Side Sunday.

“When we were arrived, I was just blown away by how many people were already there fishing,” Horvath messaged.

He used his medium-light Zebco rod with a drop-shot rig on 4-pound line.

“It was my third drop down when I felt the slightest little tick,” he messaged.

He set the hook, but it wasn’t a perch and stayed down. Then his drag started screaming. After a 10-minute battle, Kueker netted Horvath’s first lake trout of 33 inches, 11 pounds.

“All I could hear were the cheers and clapping of fishermen and women congratulating me!” he messaged. “It truly was an amazing feeling and still feels surreal.”

Jake Kueker and Chris Horvatch caught some big perch, too.

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 chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).