Michigan’s Brown Trout Record Is Broken

RECORD BUZZ

It began as a local buzz in the Manistee area Wednesday before turning into something that resembles a feeding frenzy for the world-wide angling community.

A brown trout certified by Department of Natural Resources’ fisheries biologist Mark Tonello of Cadillac was positively identified as a huge brown trout once the weigh-in scales were double-checked and the huge fish was weighed in front of witnesses.
The Ludington News today reported the fish weighed 41.725 pounds. It measured 43.75 inches, and was caught by Tom Healy of Grand Rapids, who hooked the fish while fishing the Manistee River. Of all the state record-book browns caught, this is the first brown trout caught in a river that is tributary to Lake Michigan. All of the others have been caught from the big lake or a drowned river mouth lake.
If Healy’s fish holds up after any possible further checking, and certification from the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame http://www.freshwater-fishing.org/index.php, it will become the largest brown trout ever caught in the world. It soundly beat the previous Michigan state record brown trout caught on Mothers Day, 2007 by Casey Richey of Frankfort, Michigan.

BROWN TROUT RECORDS

Casey’s fish – a 36.81 pound brown trout from Lake Michigan at Frankfort, Michigan – was hooked while trolling a Rapala http://www.rapala.com/index.cfm. His fish also holds the world record in the 10-pound line class.

Healy’s fish was earlier reported as weighing 40 pounds, 6 ounces, which would have been two ounces heavier than the former world-record 40 pound, four ounce fish caught by Howard Collins on May 9, 1992 from the Little Red River in Arkansas.
Currently, the next largest brown trout was caught on August 7, 1988 by Michael H. Manley from the North Fork River in Arkansas. His fish weighed 38 pounds, nine ounces.
Casey Richey’s Michigan state record weighed 36.13 pounds (both weights stated here and above are from the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.
“Records are meant to be broken,” Richey said. “My father held a state record for pink salmon for about a dozen years, and then someone caught one much larger. It wouldn’t surprise me to see this new record broken sometime in the near future, and I intend to try to reclaim that record.”
It appears, if no further developments require a change, that Healy not only will own the Michigan state record but the all-time world record for brown trout as well.
This begs two questions: when will Lake Michigan get the attention it richly deserves as the best brown trout fishing hole in the world, and how long will this record stand before it too is broken by a heavier brown trout?
Records are made to be broken, and it makes one wonder just how big Great Lakes brown trout can grow. Only time will tell.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors