Menasha angler's 9.7-pound Green Bay smallmouth breaks Wisconsin's 76-year-old record

Austin Schiefer, 29, of Menasha caught a smallmouth bass in the waters of Green Bay off Oconto on Friday, Oct. 30, that weighed 9.70 pounds on a certified scale. The fish measured 23.5 inches long with a girth of at least 21 inches. He was fishing with Ted Johnson of Waupaca, and the bass hit a Deps Sakamata Shad.

The fish tops Wisconsin's smallmouth record of 9 pounds, 1 ounce, which came from an Oneida County lake in 1950. Schiefer told reporters that two Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologists made the catch official on Saturday. When the stories ran, the DNR's online record list had not been updated yet.

Schiefer said he wanted to release the bass but couldn't get hold of the biologists in time to make that work. He plans to have replicas made.

Photo: Austin Schiefer with the record smallmouth, as it ran with Fox11's story. Credit: Ted Johnson, via Fox11.

This is a The Gillnet news desk summary, not a reprint.

Source: Fox11: State record smallmouth bass caught on the waters of Green Bay in Oconto County (Eric Peterson, Nov. 2, 2026). Also reported by Outdoor News (Kevin Naze, Nov. 2, 2026).