Ken Brown has chased brown trout all over the world for more than 20 years.

On Friday, the Barrington man caught his biggest brown—25 pounds, 36 inches long with a girth of 23 inches—while fishing for smallmouth bass in Door County, Wis., messaged his friend Dan Coleman on Instagram.

Brown caught it in 3 feet of water while fishing a Dark Sleeper swimbait.

“A few times this trip he mentioned, `fishing is a body of work over a lifetime,’ and today proved it,” Coleman messaged.

That long perspective on fishing, and I would suggest life itself, is something of note. Of course, so is the big fish, too.

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), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).