Elliott Webster is only eight but he’s a good enough fisherman that his fish stories pile up.
His dad Todd Webster caught me up earlier this month.
“Elliott has been back at it again catching all kinds of species of fish this year,” Todd emailed. “His favorite story to tell is catching a sheephead that snapped his rod in half but [he] was still able to reel it in.”
Among the fish Elliott caught are salmon, lake trout, freshwater drum and smallmouth bass. One laker (above) that he caught looked nearly as big as him. The drum that busted his rod wasn’t even close to the biggest drum he caught this year.
Todd’s college friend Jeff Kopa and the fishing community at Belmont Harbor, including the crew at nearby KingFisher Charters help Elliott and hone his fishing skills.
I did a column on him in October. It’s encouraging that he is still going strong.
FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times.
To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), X (@BowmanOutside), Instagram (@BowmanOutside) or Bluesky (@BowmanOutside.bsky.social).