World Record Brown Trout Weighs in at Just Over 42 Pounds!
By OutdoorAly

Posted: August 1, 2013

New Zealand angler Otwin Kandolf’s name has officially been entered into the International Game Fish Association’s (IGFA) record book for taking the biggest brown trout ever on a rod-and-reel—a 42-pound, 1 ounce monster!

He originally thought it was a river rat similar to the one pictured below.

Capivara1

An article from the Bay of Plenty Times explained how the 71-year-old angler  bagged this brown in Oahu Canal on New Zealand’s south island.

“My friend was fishing 50m further up and shouted ‘there’s a water rat coming down’.”

But it wasn’t a river rat—it was the dorsal fin of a massive brown trout sticking out of the water that soon disappeared in a swirling pool.  He battled the giant for around 20 minutes before pulling it out of the water.

Kandolf didn’t have a certified scale or camera to document the catch, so he kept it in the refrigerator of a nearby pub overnight. It was two weeks before the fish could be measured by a certified scale.

On Saturday, July 27, Jack Vitek, record-keeper with the IGFA, said the agency approved Kandolf’s fish as the new all-tackle world record. It beats out Roger Hellen’s Lake Michigan brownie caught in 2010, which weighed 41 lbs., 8 ounces.

Photo from 3News.com.

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