Fishing from east of the Chagrin River's mouth at Fairport Harbor on Lake Erie, Dave Berg had latched onto something wet, wild and a little furious that was straining his ultralight equipment. Hanging on to what he thought might be a nice smallmouth, Berg suggested to his brother Fred, his fishing companion that morning, that someone ought to be helpful and fetch the net.

Fishing from east of the Chagrin River�s mouth at Fairport Harbor on Lake Erie, Dave Berg had latched onto something wet, wild and a little furious that was straining his ultralight equipment.

Hanging on to what he thought might be a nice smallmouth, Berg suggested to his brother Fred, his fishing companion that morning, that someone ought to be helpful and fetch the net.

Given their location among the rows of boat slips, Fred Berg regarded the request as a bit over the top.

�Fred looked at me and said something like, �Bug off,� � Dave Berg said. �I�m glad we brought the net.�

What they scooped up turned out to be a yellow perch rather larger than either had seen. In fact, the perch was larger than anyone fishing in Ohio water had recorded.

�I knew right away it was a Fish Ohio (qualifier),� Dave Berg said, �and I thought it might be a state record. I�m an avid fisherman, and I keep track of such things.�

A tape measure set the length at 15� inches. A certified scale put the weight at 2 pounds, 14 ounces, officially 2.9 pounds. Those particulars since verified, Berg�s perch has been submitted to the Outdoor Writers of Ohio for confirmation as a state record.

The record for 32 years had been a 14�-inch, 2-pound, 12-ounce giant taken April 17, 1984, by Chuck Thomas at Lorain Harbor.

Berg�s perch measured 13� inches of girth, although belt size isn�t part of the tale of the tape. It, like Thomas� catch, was a female full of eggs.

In fact, Berg�s fish fumbled away a few eggs � and quite possibly an ounce or two � as it lay in the cooler before the brothers took it to a nearby bait shop to get it weighed and measured.

�It definitely lost weight,� Dave Berg said. �It had eggs coming out, it seemed, everywhere. It was crazy.�

Crazy doesn�t begin to cover the circumstances surrounding Berg�s catch, and he emphasized that almost nobody goes out to catch a record fish. Most anglers will settle for a few fillets, although simply a pleasant hour or four can be sufficient.

The Bergs headed out that day for some respite, to drink a beer together, to spend a little quality time together before Dave, 46, faced surgery, which was scheduled for April 21, two days

later, to remove what turned out to be a cancerous kidney.

A little of the anxiety and gloom was relieved by the unexpected.

�It�s a blessing. Stuff happens for a reason,� said Dave Berg, of Mentor, Ohio. �My wife said, � You took off from work, you went out to have a Corona, and you get a state-record fish.��

The surgery went well, Berg said, the proof being that he was back to work last week. A course of chemotherapy is next, hopefully to knock down any stray cancer cells.

The yellow perch, back in Berg�s possession after undergoing inspections, will become a mount, he said.

�I feel honored beating a record that has stood for so long,� he said. �Maybe this one will last awhile before it�s broken.�

Parting shots

Ohio�s spring wild-turkey season ends today at sunset. � U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that acreage caps imposed by Congress for the Conservation Reserve Program should be increased. The caps on the program, which pays landowners to transform marginal cropland into wildlife habitat, allowed the acceptance of only about 800,000 of the 1.8 million acres offered during the most-recent sign-up cycle, which ended in February.

outdoors@dispatch.com