courtesy Department of Natural Resources

The nearly 250 fish hauled out of Ronald Wayne Johnson's home

Ronald Wayne Johnson was recently pulling his fishing hut off a lake in Otter Tail County, about an hour from Fergus Falls, when a conservation officer stopped to say hey and see how the catching was.

Johnson had gotten a few fish, he said, though not many. The officer, Shane Osborne, asked if Johnson had more fish at home. The angler replied that he wasn't sure, but that if Osborne thought he might have too many, he was welcome to follow him back and check for himself.

Seems like a less-than-bright invitation from a man who, Osborne found, harbored a catch cache nearly 250 fish over the legal limit.

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DNR

A look at a portion of Tran's ridiculous panfish stash.

If society crumbles and our food-supply system breaks down, head to Otsego and look up Chien Van Tran.

Armed with a fishing rod, Tran should be able to feed you -- if he isn't in the slammer, that is. Because after being caught with nearly 400 sunfish above the state's legal limit, he now faces up to a year in jail.

Tran, 39, was busted by a DNR conservation officer while leaving Pelican Lake on April 4. The officer witnessed Tran loading a bag of fish into a locked compartment of his boat, then approached him to ask if he had any fish onboard. Tran showed the officer a cooler with about a dozen fish in it, but the officer knew Tran was hiding some of his catch.
 
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Jeff Kolodzinski holds the record-breaking fish from last year.

​Jeff Kolodzinski, the former Twin Cities resident who set the Guinness World Record for most fish caught in a 24-hour period last year, is trying to break his own mark today. 

Last year on July 30, Kolodzinski sat on the dock at Maynard's Restaurant on Lake Minnetonka and stayed there until he'd caught 2,143 fish -- or maybe the same stupid fish 2,143 times -- to set a new world record for speed and stamina. At that rate, Kolodzinski was catching one and a half fish per minute, all day and all night.

Banking on the fact that the fish in Lake Minnetonka haven't learned a thing since that day,  Kolodzinski has come back. Starting at 11 a.m., Kolodzinski, who now lives in Milwaukee, will be casting from the same spot to try and break his own record during Fishing for Life's Fish-A-Thon, a charity event that should probably renamed Jeff Kolodzinski Catches A Ton of Fish.

Kolodzinski told the Pioneer Press the trick is his simple rod and reel, which allow him to bait, catch, and release the fish rapidly.

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