DULUTH 鈥� Charter fishing Capt. Kent Paulsen has been predicting a new state record coho salmon would come out of the Minnesota waters of Lake Superior sometime soon, he just wasn鈥檛 sure who the lucky angler would be.
It turned out to be a customer on Paulsen's boat, True North II, on Labor Day morning about three miles outside the Duluth Entry.
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David Cichosz, 54, of Wabasha, Minnesota, caught a coho salmon weighing 10.92 pounds (29 inches long) breaking the old record set in 1970 of 10.38 pounds, or 10 pounds, 6 ounces.
Because the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is in the process of revising its record fish program, reclassifying all kept fish records before 1980 as historic and not certified, Cichosz's coho was actually the second fish caught over the weekend that would have qualified as the new certified state record coho.
On Sunday, 7-year-old Walter Taylor of Stillwater, Minnesota 鈥� fishing with charter Capt. Brody Kaldahl on his boat the Looper 2.0 鈥� caught a 10.06 pound coho (also 29 inches long) that DNR officials said would have been the new official record had Cichosz fish not been caught.
The two coho salmon are part of a never-before-seen run of big coho on western Lake Superior this summer as the fish have been gorging on the largest-ever crop of little cisco, also called lake herring.
Paulsen鈥檚 client's coho on Monday twas weighed on a certified scale at a Super One grocery store. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources staff have received the record fish application form, have officially witnessed the fish, and expect it to be officially certified within days.
We have about another month to see if we can break the record again this year.
An average coho on the big lake has run 2-4 pounds for the past 30 years or more, struggling to find food in frigid, infertile Lake Superior. But not this year.
鈥淲e鈥檝e been watching the coho fatten up fast all summer, hitting 4 pounds and then 6 pounds and then 7. ... We鈥檝e actually been expecting this to happen. We鈥檝e been telling our clients to be ready for a possible state record, and it happened,鈥� Paulsen told the News Tribune on Monday. 鈥淏ut I honestly don鈥檛 expect that we will hold the record very long. 鈥� I wouldn鈥檛 doubt at all if it鈥檚 broken again in the next few days. And definitely by next year.
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"I wouldn't be surprised if we see a 15-pounder next year, thanks to this cisco boom," Paulsen said.
Cichosz caught his record coho on a flasher-fly combination, Spin Doctor Flasher and Chasin' Tail fly, was trolled behind a downrigger 50 feet down over 80 feet of water. Cichosz donated the fish to the DNR and plans to have a replica made at Fiber Tech Productions.
鈥淵ep, it was his first time fishing on Lake Superior,鈥� Paulsen noted of Cichosz. 鈥淗e鈥檚 an ex-Marine.鈥�
Paulsen said the strong fish 鈥渟creamed about 100 feet of line off the reel even before Cichoszcould grab the rod and start reeling in 鈥� we knew it was a big fish right away.鈥�
Walter Taylor's 10-pound-plus coho caught on Kaldahl鈥檚 boat hit a Creative Touch spoon behind a Dipsy Diver about 80 feet down, about 5 miles out from the Duluth Entry.
The coho salmon, like lake trout and Chinook salmon, have been feasting on the largest wave of cisco since records have been kept. This batch hatched in Lake Superior early in 2022 and are now the perfect size for munching by bigger fish. DNR biologists this spring predicted the mass of cisco was about to drive an explosion of fish biomass in the big lake, and they were right. But predictions that big fish (trout and salmon) would be too full of cisco to chase anglers' lures proved premature. Instead, it鈥檚 been one of the best summers for fishing in anyone's memory at the western tip of Lake Superior.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 ever recall fishing as good as this summer,鈥� said Kaldahl, who has been fishing on the lake for seven years and has been running his own charter boat for three seasons.
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鈥淚t鈥檚 the best I鈥檝e ever witnessed,鈥� said Paulsen, who has been fishing the big lake for 22 years and running his charter business the past eight seasons. 鈥淭he lake trout have been steady all summer. We didn鈥檛 have the usual slowdown in July and August, and this added bonus of these big coho, it鈥檚 been incredible.鈥�
Cory Goldsworthy, Minnesota DNR Lake Superior fisheries supervisor, said the cisco that the big fish are eating are already about 8 inches long. By late next year, the cisco will be too big for all but the largest lake trout to eat, and the cisco boom will end as quickly as it began, at least as far as sport anglers are concerned. (Commercial cisco netters will reap the benefits for years to come.)
Until then, though, he expects at least one more summer of fatter-than-usual trout and salmon on western Lake Superior in 2024. Goldsworthy said even the state record Chinook salmon, two 33-pound fish caught in 1989, could fall.
"We鈥檙e already seeing 20-pound Chinooks this summer, so that record is not out of the question for next summer,鈥� Goldsworthy said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e really in uncharted territory for Lake Superior. We've never seen anything like this.鈥�
Coho salmon are native to the Pacific Ocean and had been stocked in Lake Superior at least as far back as 1966, Goldsworthy said. Several states and Ontario had aggressive stocking programs, but those have all stopped now and the fish are a 鈥渟elf-sustaining, naturalized population,鈥� Goldsworthy said, spawning in Lake Superior tributaries each fall.
The last 鈥渆pic鈥� cisco boom was in 1984, Goldsworthy said, and this one now is estimated to be double that size.
There are so many cisco in western Lake Superior that the coho didn鈥檛 make their usual summer migration up the North Shore to chase their usual prey. Instead, they stayed around the Twin Ports. Now, the salmon are staging off river mouths waiting for enough flow in North and South shore rivers to spawn, likely later in September.
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鈥淲e have about another month to see if we can break the record again this year,鈥� Paulsen said, adding that the 3-year-old coho then die after they spawn.
This summer鈥檚 2-year-old fish already weigh 4, 5 and even 6 pounds, "so I think we鈥檒l see bigger coho next summer when those fish get to be 3 years old,鈥� Kaldahl said.
This story was updated at 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 6 to correct that Walter Taylor's coho was smaller than the 1970 state record coho but likely would have been the new certified state record coho as the DNR is in the process of reclassifying all kept fish records before 1980 as historic and not certified.
This story was updated by 11:25 a.m. Sept. 5 to add, "David Cichosz donated the fish to the DNR and plans to have a replica made at Fiber Tech Productions."
This story originally listed the incorrect length for Walter Taylor's fish. It was updated at 10:54 a.m. Sept. 5.
The News Tribune regrets the errors.
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