A Wyoming angler just fished his way into the record books after landing a massive new state record tiger trout, beating the previous record by nearly a pound.
When angler Owen Schaad hooked up with the nearly 12-pound fish he thought a huge brown trout had swallowed his hook. Eventually, he was able to net the fish and knew he had caught something special.
Schaad told the Wyoming Game & Fish Department about his once-in-a-lifetime catch. Owen says he was fighting the fish for a whopping 20 minutes before he even got a good look at the fish. Up to that point, he thought it was a large brown trout on his line but as it got close he realized it was a potentially record-setting tiger trout.
Tiger trout are hybrids between brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and brown trout (Salmo trutta). These spectacular fish are easily identifiable by their bright colors and vivid patterns. Those patterns take on elements of both the Brook Trout and Brown Trout species.
In a press release about the new state record tiger trout, the Wyoming Game & Fish Department recognized how rare it is to break a trout record in the Cowboy State these days:
“Schaad broke the state record that had been in place for 11 years, previously set in May 2012. In fact, he’s one of the only people to break a trout state record in a while. The previous tiger trout in 2012 and splake in 2011 are the only trout state records to have been broken in the 21st century. These two hybrid species are relatively new in Wyoming. Prior to 2011, the most recent trout state record added to the books occurred in 1995 when a 50 pound lake trout was landed at Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which tied a state record from 1983.”
After landing the fish, he brought it home and called the game warden who advised him to seek out a certified scale. So he headed to the nearest grocery store with a certified scale and it weighed in at a whopping 11.93 pounds.
The previous Wyoming state record for tiger trout weighed 11.07 pounds. That fish was 27 7/8 inches long and caught on the High Savery Reservoir by angler Jackson Sorensen.