I am not guaranteeing this is real and it certainly is not yet official. The website this comes from is owned by an Ministry of Natural Resources biologist in Ontario. He is also a fly fishing guide.
I did not realize the site was commercial. Thank you for posting the picture, Juro. I agree, that is not a natural fish. The general consensus is that because the records don't specifically deny farm escapees, that as soon as they escape they are fair game. So its hard for the record keepers to say no to the lady who caught it as long as she followed all the rules, etc.
Looks like that fish swallowed a basketball! :whoa: :Eyecrazy: :whoa: :Eyecrazy:
While I do agree that she caught the fish fair and square and therefore deserves to be placed in the record books, I also agree with Juro, I would much rather catch a wild west coast steelhead or even a wild great lakes fish. The way that fish looks I would hazard to guess that the fight was unremarkable.
That is an insane fish. 40#'s!!!
I know the guy that holds the current IGFA rainbow on fly (something like 23#), and that fish is beautiful (it was released). Caught in BC.
Wow -
What a pig -
However lets face it all record fish are freaks of nature and are not ever typcially of the species in question. While it is hard to tell from the limited picture it looks to me that the fish has been free swimming for quite some time and has grown considerably in the wild -- the fins (can't see the dorsal - darn) have all grown out and are not eroded as one would expect from a recent escapee/release from a net pen.
The body condition of that rainbow is not all that dis-similar from some of the huge browns whose picutres I have seen from the Great Lakes -- remember we are talking about a fish that appears to be of rainbow heritage rather than steelhead. It would not surprise me that it is found that the fish is of hatchery origin (aren't all Great Lakes Mykiss) that has spend most or all of its life in the wild.
Does that make it record fish? -- I would say yes.
Is it what I picture in my minds eye of "trophy" rainbow? No, for me it would be a stream fish born and reared fish of exceptional size for the given water - whether that is a 14 incher from a creek to a 8#er a large river.
I keep conjuring up images of this fish sucking on a feeding tube full of high protein, fats and carbos eating something like gallon after gallon of shrimp flavored Ben and Jerry's. Or of it tied to a string and floating like a helium balloon in some sick Gary Larson cartoon. I can only guess what the fight was like.....landing a 40 pound wool sweater wrapped around a 2 pound fish.
Big fat Carp? ....sure....
fat Grouper? ....ya....
a big bellied catfish......uh-huh........
but this thing.....YEOWZA!
Don't know what I'd do with that.....except maybe apply for a record citation......maybe. :hihi: :Eyecrazy:
the current world record fish id an Alaskan fish - 42 lbs, 1970
the current Canadian record fish is a BC fish - 35.12 lbs, 1976
the current Ontario record fish - 29.12 lbs
I edited the title of the original post to be correct.
These are some interesting quotes from the Manitoulin Expositor:
Anglers Bruce and Joanne Vendramin, of Sudbury, knew they'd hooked onto something special last Wednesday afternoon while downrigging with six-pound test line and a 300 AC Shiner lure near Fisher Harbour.
"We played it for about 10 minutes, and finally it got tired and floated to the surface."
"We picked it up in the net, and it broke right through the bottom," said Ms. Vendramin. Fortunately, at that point the couple had the net positioned over the boat, so the behemoth "just slipped through to the front of the boat," she said.
It was caught on a six foot spinning rod and six pound test line. Some people report that the escapees hang out around the cage for the free food that drifts away.
Curt:
While it is true that alot of hatchery fish have been stocked in the Great Lakes, early plantings included both hatchery and wild fish:
Cambell's Creek and McCloud strains from California 1876
Klamath River in Oregon
Brown trout from Loch Leven and Germany - also in 1800's
plus alot of other stuff in between now and then
Some rivers that haven't been tampered with too much are rumored to still contain certain strains from that time period. I think the correct term for these would be "naturalized" fish. If you took a wild strain from California or Scotland and put it in a different environment it would continue to evolve in order to best suit that environment. Genetic selection is allowing them to adapt to different spawning opportunities. And don't all lake bound rainbows migrate up rivers to spawn? Any that I've seen that don't have this opportunity get "egg-bound" like in the Cariboo lakes of BC. This is where 2 or even 3 sets of eggs are in the belly cavity, the fresh ones still inside the ovaries and the rotten ones floating around. Interesting research on migratory brook trout in Lake Superior has shown that some go to the lake and some stay in the stream. So two sibling brookies could have a vast size potential and lifestyle difference. But I'll certainly agree that that fat thing is not a trophy fish. In another picture of the fish, it's dorsal is deformed, but healing. I'll try to post it.
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