PIONEER, Ohio – Jaret Stevens recently caught an Ohio record green sunfish. Stevens visited a neighbor’s farm pond to fish, maybe catch some bass or grass carp. He had no idea he was going to land a state record. But his catch has been certified by the Outdoor Writers of Ohio (OWO) State Record Fish Committee.

Stevens’ state record fish weighed 1.35 pounds and measured 11.45 inches long. It was caught with a spinning rod spooled with six-pound test monofilament and baited with a red worm. Ohio’s record fish are determined based on weight only.

“I had no clue that there were green sunfish in there,” Stevens said. “It was a shock. I originally thought it was a bass because it was in a bunch of weeds. As soon as I was able to get it out of the weeds and look at it, I was like, ‘Oh wow,’ it’s a special fish.’

“I brought it home, thought it was a nice fish, and that I would like to have it mounted,” he said. “Then I was talking with my wife and thought maybe I should have that fish weighed. It was longer than the previous record, and I thought it might have more weight on it as well.”

Stevens took the fish to a local meat market and discovered that it did weigh more than the previous record green sunfish. Next, he tracked down Brad Agler, an Ohio Division of Wildlife fisheries biologist from the St. Joseph River Fish Unit, who determined that the fish was indeed a green sunfish. All record fish must be examined by an Ohio wildlife fisheries biologist for species confirmation.

Stevens will be presented with a certificate from the Outdoor Writers of Ohio, and his name will go in the record books. The previous record green sunfish weighed in at 1.2 pounds and was 11 inches long. It was also caught in a Richland County farm pond by SueAnn Newswanger in 2018.

Interestingly, most of the record sunfish have been caught in farm ponds. Fred Snyder, OWO State Record Fish Committee chair, said he thinks it is because these ponds have limited access; people must have permission to fish there.

“You don’t get the whole crowd from the city or anything like that,” Snyder said. “Generally, they are small enough that you can have access to the whole thing; you can fish around the banks. It’s reachable for your casting, but there are not usually that many people trying to take the fish out.”

Also, Snyder said that people nowadays are stocking ponds with sunfish. The redear sunfish tends to grow fairly large; the record is 3.58 pounds. So those fish became popular for stocking over the last 20 years. Soil and water conservation districts often include them in their sales.

Another reason many of these farm ponds yield record fish could be because their intended use was livestock, not fishing, explained Matt Buchhop, Williams County Soil and Water Conservation District technician.

“A lot of them were just never fished, allowing fish populations to continue to grow and get bigger; that would be my assumption,” Buchhop said. “They wanted ponds for a different reason, and they were never fished until somebody asked permission.”

The approximately half-acre pond where Stevens caught his fish was originally intended for livestock. Forrest Church, the current owner, has had the property for about 10 years. His family uses the pond for recreation. His 11-year-old son, Connor Church, enjoys fishing. In fact, he caught a nice-sized green sunfish there on his first fishing outing this spring.

“I was told these shallow ponds were built back in the 50s for livestock,” Forrest Church said. “It was beyond shallow, so we did dig it out lightly with an excavator.”

Church has never stocked the pond, but Stevens remembered a previous owner stocking it with catfish.

For now, he has a green sunfish story that will be hard to top. And it’s not a lie.

For more information on Ohio’s state record fish program, contact Fred Snyder, Chairman, OWO State Record Fish Committee, 754 Co. Rd. 126, Fremont, OH 43420, phone (419) 307-1515, email fnsnyder@gmail.com, www.outdoorwritersofohio.org.