Emilia Mazzuca, 11, caught her biggest bass, a 19-inch, 4-pound largemouth, last week. Well, it was her biggest very briefly.
‘‘About five minutes later [she] beat that one and caught a 21-inch 5-pounder,’’ dad Nick Mazzuca emailed. ‘‘One [came] on a Texas-rigged worm and one on a popper on Long Lake. I couldn’t be more proud!’’
Her catch leads into a back-to-school special.
• Pastor and biblical scholar Mitch Brown emailed a photo Sunday of his ‘‘oldest grandkid up at Green Lake, Wisconsin,’’ with a largemouth.
‘‘What’s strange is absolutely nobody in my family fishes, but it’s his favorite pastime,’’ Brown noted. ‘‘He’s got a good friend whose family are fisher folk.’’
There are many paths to enjoying the outdoors, including fishing, and not all of them involve mentoring from a family member.
• On a more traditional path, Wheaton North’s Zach Widelski and Ty Nielsen, who graduated last spring, finished 16th at the Bassmaster High School National Championship on Lake Chickamauga in Tennessee. They caught 20 pounds the first two days, just missing the cut to fish the final day.
That capped a run by Widelski and Nielsen that saw them win the Illinois High School Association state championship for bass fishing in May on Carlyle Lake.
• Also from Chickamauga, Pete Banach sent this update in late July.
His son Nathan and Joey ‘‘Lewis’’ Eskew qualified for the Bassmaster Junior National Championship for Off The Hook Junior Bassmasters. Banach couldn’t coach his son during the season while he coached his daughter at Reed-Custer High School.
‘‘A man that I now call a friend, Jay Eskew, said he would coach my son and his son. He coached them through the season,’’ Banach messaged. ‘‘They made it to state, then made it to nationals.’’
When they made nationals, Eskew offered to let Banach coach them. So Banach coached them on Chickamauga in a group effort.
‘‘We had a decent practice and came up with a plan,’’ Banach messaged. ‘‘In practice, I caught a 7.1-pounder. I was bummed because I really wished one of the boys caught it. But at least we knew there was good fish there.’’
Indeed. They finished tied for 28th.
‘‘That’s crazy to think they fished against the top 129 [juniors] in the country,’’ Banach messaged. ‘‘We are so proud of them.’’
Wild things
It has been an astonishingly slow year for monarch butterflies. I’ve seen zero in our yard, though I’ve blamed that partially on the damn rabbits eating all but one of my wife’s milkweeds.
On Monday, Tom Jurich, a monarch aficionado in Munster, Indiana, sent an update.
‘‘I’ve collected eggs and released only about 20% of my past totals,’’ he emailed. ‘‘Due to mid-September migration, I normally do not collect eggs after [Aug. 15]. That was my intention this year, but that’s changed. Since yesterday, I’ve found 40 eggs on my plants and a friend across town has found nearly 80. As I write this, I’m watching a female dropping more. It’s a late year, but it’s finally a year!’’
Stray cast
A blue super moon and a Bears quarterback looking like it’s 2024 in the space of three days? What’s next, an Illinois angler catching a native brook trout?