(WWJ) -- An Oakland County teen has landed himself in the record books after hauling in a new state-record salmon on Lake Michigan over the weekend.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources says 19-year-old Luis Ricardo Hernandez Martinez of Ortonville was troll fishing with Capt. Bobby Sullivan of Icebreaker Charters near Ludington early Saturday when he hooked a Chinook Salmon weighing in at 47.86 lbs. And measuring 47.5 inches long.
It broke a state record that stood for more than four decades. The previous Chinook record was set in 1978 by Ray Essex of Grand Rapids, who caught a salmon that weighed 46.06 lbs. and measured 43.5 inches long.
“I never expected a catch like this would happen,” Martinez told the DNR. "It’s possible for anyone if I can do it! I would like to extend a great ‘thank you’ to Capt. Bobby, as it was he who made this catch possible for me.”
The teen used a Moonshine raspberry carbon spoon lure on his record catch.
The captain said Luis “did an amazing job, executing perfectly everything I asked him to do in order to bring this fish in.”
The new state-record Chinook salmon was verified by Jay Wesley, Lake Michigan Basin coordinator with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, with Scott Heintzelman, the DNR's Central Lake Michigan Management Unit supervisor, also present.
Michigan’s state-record fish are recognized by weight only. To qualify for a state record, fish must exceed the current listed state-record weight, and identification must be verified by a DNR fisheries biologist.
A full current list of Michigan state fish records by species can be found at Michigan.gov/StateRecordFish, and anyone looking to plan a fishing adventure in the Great Lakes State can find more information at Michigan.gov/Fishing.
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