A state record swimming in the Little Miami?

So I was back at the hole. The hole where the week before I'd caught 19 inch plus smallmouth on back to back trips. But a cold front had blown thru and the smallie bite had kicked the proverbial bucket. In the last couple days I'd caught nothing but small bass and not a lot of them. But I'd caught the only decent fish last trip in the tail of the pool. Every year I catch big smallies up in the head of the pool but never down in the tail. It was a couple hours till dark so I decided to take my time and fish the entire length of the hole. I think what makes this such a good place is that the entire length of the hole has a rock bottom with almost no silt at all. The rivers low right now so I tied on a small square billed bomber alphabet plug. Silver with a black back and a bit of purplish cast to it. The first cast or two were right in the slick where the water speeds up before spilling over the riffle. Then I cast a bit further up. Still close to the riffle but in deeper, say waist deep water. Thump. Something big hit the crank. But it just bored slowly upstream slowly pulling drag. I just assumed it was a catfish. Then it turned and ran back downstream again. Slowly but you could tell it was a heavy fish. And so it went for a minute or two as a gained a bit of line each time. Finally it rolled and I saw golden brown and thought oh wow its a big saugeye. I beached it and had it just about unhooked before I realized it didn't have any of the keys that tell you it was a saugeye. There was not the big spot at the base of the dorsal that saugeye and walleyes have. And there was not the white on the anal fin or tail like saugeye have. Jeepers this thing is a sauger! I didn't think they made em that big. I looked it over as carefully as I could and couldn't make anything out of it but a sauger. I measured the fish carefully, it taped out right at 25 inches. The thing fought better on land than in the water and I'd already dropped it once. I snapped a quick picture of myself and the fish then held it in the water for a minute or two before snapping a couple more. I was worried about the fish making it at this point and didn't take enough pictures of its fins to satisfy everyone that it was a sauger. Ive caught some grief over that. I then held it by the tail and worked it back and forth in the water till it was strong enough to swim away under it's own power. When I posted the fish on the Ohio game fishing forum the majority of people thought it was a sauger but a few doubted my ID. Too big it's gotta be a saugeye. Even though you can plainly see in every picture theres no white on the fishes fins. But in ever picture its dorsal is folded down. I really don't care about that though, I know what I caught. If I was in it for bragging rights the fish would be dead and in the freezer right now. But come January I'll know the state record is swimming in the LMR. You see the current record is 24.5 inches long, a half inch shorter than this fish. My fish wouldn't have broken the record today though. That other fish was caught in late winter and weighed 7.31 pounds full of eggs. But, but come January my fish will still be alive and full of eggs of its own...