World Record Brown Trout
Word is in today that a possible world record brown trout was landed today on the Manistee River. The Ludington Daily News is one of the first to carry the story. Eric Sharp at the Detroit Free Press provides details as well. The Michigan DNR has certified it as the new Michigan record brown trout, weighing 41 lbs., 7.25 oz. It measures out at 43.75 inches in length.
Tom Healy from the Grand Rapids area landed the fish. His charter guide was Tim Roller. The fish was caught on a black-and-silver Rapala Shad Rap crankbait. The angler was using a Cabela’s XML spinning rod and Cabela’s Prodigy reel loaded with 30-pound braided line. They were targeting salmon when the brown attacked the crankbait. The fight lasted fifteen minutes.
Although the fish has not been declared a world record, the official weight puts it over the previous “all tackle” IFGA world record brown trout of 40 lbs., 4 oz. — a fish caught by Howard Collins on Arkansas’ Little Red River (a tributary of the White River) in 1992. Given the extensive and professional documentation of this fish by DNR fisheries biologists, however, it is hard to see how it could not be declared the world record.
